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v-'^

THE

UNITED STATES UNMASKED.

A SEARCH INTO THt CAUSES

THE RISE AND PROGRESS

These States,

A.VU AN

EXPOSURE OV THKIR PRESENT MATERIAL
AND MORAL CONDITION.

G. MANIGAULT.

London, Ontario:
.». H. Vivian, :U)8 fLAREsct Stkket.

1878.

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year
one thousand eight hundred and seventy-eight, by G. Manigault,
in the oflice of the Minister of Agriculture.

VIVIAN,

STIiKHOTVPER,

LONDON, ONT.

the year

lOAULT,

PREFACE.

The author of this little book lately made several
efforts to get it publisher! in the Unite<l States. But
even those publisher, whose political and social convic-
tions carry them a long way with him in the views
herein expressed, shrank from becoming god-fathers to
his bantling. To do so would jeoj)ar*lize their business
interests, which are dependent on popular favour.
For a people may fall into such a condition, that
the j.Tossest offence you can give them, is to tell
them the truth of themselves.

This obstacle has induced the author to brinir out his
book in Canada, in a fonn somewhat abridged — thus
retaining some control over the copyright elsewhere.

Ti
Ui

th.
an
th<
rej
cal
wli

THE UNITED STATES UNMASKED.

SKARrH INTO THK CArSKSOFTHK RiSK AND PlKKiKKSS

OFTHK U.S. AND AN EXPOSUHKOF THKIH IMtKSKNT MaTK-

UIAL AND MOKAI. CONDITION.

CHAPTER I.

The Reasons f(n' entering on this Inquiry/.

Thk overweening tone in which tlie people of tlie
United States liave long V)een boasting of Uieir country,
their govenniient, and themselves, coupled with the va.st
and jK'Culiar, hut accidental advantages, long enjoyed by
the inhabitants of these states, has gained for them a
reputation fur ^visdom in the organization of their politi-
cal institutions, an<l in the conduct of their aHaii>», to
which they have little claim.

There is indeed much in the history and progress of
tliis nu»nster republic to excite? the wonder of the worM.
Not even ImixM-ial, and later. Papal Romo ever exercised,
by the mere ft>rce of opinion disseminated from it as
a centre, a wider an<l vaster influence over the nations of
the oaith, than the United Stati's have dont' for many

'iHi: rNirr.n nt.vtks

years past. Not only have tlie old ami liij^lily civilizcil
monarchies of V^unpc been convulsed, and some of them
revolutionized, throu«,dj the spreading of political
doctrines and social theories, which, if thev did not iirii^in-
ate, genninat«-*d and now Hourish in this paradise of
democmcy, where their fruits are fast niaturin;^^ if not
yet i|uit<! ri|K' ; hut thest; convictions and doj^nias in
social seionce, emanatini^ from the United States, now
bear sway over the half barbarous n-publics of Mexico
and South Americ'a, over the j^rowinj,' democracies of
Au.stralia and South Africa, and their influence seems to
be felt in the remote, and, until lately, secluded empires
of (Jliina and Japan.

'I'lje popular voier throui^hout tlu' world has attributed
the proi^re.ss, prosperity, and power of the Unite<l States
to the wisdom and justice of the political institutions
4«'nerated there. These thev ]»elieve ha\e secured the
happy condition of the people ; tliese have fostercil that
wonderful skill and encr^iy whicb is speedily developinL;;
the latent n-.sources of half a contini nt. This conviction
has led the jjopulace, wherever they have been awaken-
ed to the con.sideration of their political and social condi-
tion, to hail the United States as the pattern held up before
the eyes of all mankin<l, to guide them in remodelling the
institutions of their country, and in establishing the prin-
ciples whicli here on earth are to regenerat(i humanity.

But a vigilant ami impartial observer, looking at the
United States from difterent stand points within and
without, and studying their history tlirough the different
periods of their career, can detect the grossly exaggerated
misconceptions prevailing in Europe and elsewhere, as to

INMASKKP.

die |»nis|M'nty of tin- ('nit<(l StuU's, and as to tlic sources
of it ; and also as to tlu; nsults of the di'iiiocratic ft)rin of
^'ovfrninrnt ado]»t«'d tlun-. Ami when lie has (U'toctcd
not oidy tli»'S«' ^'ri)ss rnisc'onct'])ti<)ns, but the vast and
wide spn'ad nusehief ahvady <lone hy reeeivin;; tlirni as
tnitliK. 1h' is hound in jonnnon lionesty to point tliein
out.

Without attt iii|»ting an exaet ananj,a'nient of our
matter under tlic foll()win<j; liea<ls, we will endeavour
suhstantially to prove:

1. That wliatever wis(h)Ui and principirs of justice
may luive proniote<l tlie prosperity of tlie stati's now
known as the Tnited States, tliey did not originate there,
but were brought in from abroad, and have there deterior-
ated rather than improved.

2. That un<ler the gui(hinee of tlii.s imported wis«lom
and justier. a va.st and rare eombinati<>n of natuial
advant^ig«'s built up the })rosj)enty of these states.

',\. Tliat tlu^ natural an<l material advanttiges they en-
joyed were n«jt more freely and eagerly used, tlian waste-
fully abused and exluiuste(l.

4 That, far from having made moral j)rogress witli their
growth, the forty millions of ])eopIe in the United States
are m<>st strongly characterized by their unblushing polit-
ical, social and financial corruj)tion.

C'llAPTKIi II.

Tin' CiiVKVH of t}n' roft'nf Pi'Of/i'CHs tnnl Pt'oHftrrif// nf fhr
thirteen Knyttsh ColmtirH ii'lnch Ihthuh' Sfatrs.

Aint'i'ica was lon«jf and is still, at tiiiu's, calk'tl i\w NfW
World, a name convct only in this sense: it was newlv
known to tln' people of Europe, and tliut l»i«;lier eivilizii-
tion, lonj;- existin<jf in Kuroix', was new to this westein
continent. Hut the races now dominant in America are
not new either to lustory or civilization. Tliey are the
otispring of detachments froi.i the peoples of En«^land,
Spain, Portu<,^al and France, sent, or ratlier coming out
as colonists, and long governed and protected by the
countries fiom which they came.

(Confining our remarks to the colonists fiom En<dand
we will point out tlie pecidiar advantages which, beyond
those of the colonists of any other nation, they brought
out with them from home, and met with in America. Let
the reader consider how rare and happy, yet ui\foreseen,
was that concurrence of circumstances which combined
to secure the success of these English settlenu-Jits on the
North American coast.

]. The mother country was a poAverful nati<m, and
especially strong at sea. This enabled it to protect its
remotest colony against every other maritime power-
That country moreover was blessed with a wiser code of
laws and freer institutions than any other nation. In
civilization a!ts, science, and litoraturc it liad no superior,

TMK I'NITKI) STATKS rNMASKKD.

he Nt'W
^ lU'wly
civil iza-
Wf.strni
srica arc

are the
in«^lan(l,
ling out

hy the

Lu^rlaiul

beyond

•lou^'ht

Let

neseeii,

11 billed

on tlie

n, and

:ect its
[u)\ver-
L^ode of
|)n. In

pei'ior,

•a

if any e(|ual. And, above all, Christianity liad th« re
shaken oH* the tranniiellin;; eorniptions of the Chureli of
Home.

"1. Tlie eolonists not only broij^dit out with them tin;
laws ami institutions vvhieh they had inherited with tlit-
lest of their eountrymen, but they wen- a seleetion of tin-
more eiiterprisinij^ individuals from aiiion<^ tlu' most eti-
t('rj)risin«ij of nations and races ; a peoph; dlstin^uisht d
by tht'ir industry, enerj^^y, inventive powers, an<l in<li-
vidual .self-reliance. This peculiarly fitted them to mnkr
tlit'ir way in the N«;\v World.

.S. Most fortunate was it for these Enii^li.sli colonist>
that the S|)aniards, runnini,' after the 'ujiiis fafutis of an
pjl dorado in tropical America, had got the start of them
l»y their coiKpiests in tlu^ West Indies, and in Mexi(.'o and
Peru. But for that, the prospect of speedy ^^ain, in its
most tempting form, would have <li verted the Engli.sh,
in the pursuit of gold, from an enterprise which led to
their peopleing with their offspring the better half of tlu'
continent,

4. The region most accessible to English enterprise on
the coast of North America lay between the latitudes 31
and 43, North. In the greater part of this region tliey
found a temperate climate and much fertile soil ; and it
abounded with natural productions continually remind-
ing the colonists of tlieir old home. If, on close inspec-
tion of these specimens from the animal or vegetable
kingdom, the Englishman found the .species ditlerent, yet
the genus was apt to be the same with that so well
known to him from bo3diood. Nature in many, and the
most obvious of her productions, here and in England,

I'liK iNiii;!) sr.\ri;s

often ran in wonderfully parallel lines, rarely coineidin;^,
.seldom far apart. If tlio colonist wandered tln'ouL;li the
woods, lie found oaks, beeches, elms, pines, hollies, and
other sylvan (h'nizens 8tron<,dy recalling;' to him England's
forest trees. He .started from tlie covert the Inick and
the doe, the smaller representatives of the genus of tlie
stag and the hind, and Avortli}' compeers of the fallow
deer he had so often seen in l^iglish parks. On liis
approach the hare starte*! from her form, the covey of
the parti'idge or the fpiail flurried him l)y their sudden
wliiiling flight from almost beneath his feet; and he de-
tected tlie stealthy fox springing (juickly out of sight.
Standing on the hank of the rivulet he watched the
})('ieh and speckled trout gliding down the stream, the
heron wading in its waters, the eagle soai'ing ovei- head,
and he heard the voice of the dove cooing in the woods.
Throughout the more cons})icuous objects of organized
nature he was seldom at a loss for an Knglish name for
the new object so like that Avhich he had left behind him in
the old country ; and he instinctively felt that he had
foundanew^ home, in wliich liis race couhl live and thrive
and spread itself over regions seemingly without bounds.

5. These English colonists enjoye(l another peculiar
advantage on which, in order that it may be duly esti-
mated, we shall comment more at length.

No numerous people, as in Mexico, Peru, and many
other lands coveted by ambitious and entei'prising nations
in Europe, here already pre-occupied the soil. Yet the
country was not uniidiabited. Many scattered savage
triVjes, engaged in endless wai" with each other, which
kept down their nun)V>ers, roamed over rather than oecu-

r.NMASKKl).

pied the country. Tliis rare. Immv at least, hail not ad-
vanc«'<l Iteyond tlu' lnnitiiii,^ sta,u<* of man's pursuits.
They had taken no st»'i> towaids hceoiiiin^ a })astoral
]K'()])1<'. havin*;' doni('sticate<l no animal, not even the doi; ;
an<l if ti)t\v had taken a stcj) towards tiliin;; the soil, it
Whs only hy tlie casual lahourof tlieir women, to supply
tobacco for their pijies, and mai/e for the ,ij;;reen corn fes-
tival. So stiaiti'ued and unc«'rtain were their means of
livin;^ that tlu' population ]>etween the Atlantic and the
far west did not fuiiiish one soul to the s(piare mile.

It is true that this savaije race fiercely resisted the
intrusion of the foreigners ui)on their huntinir <n*ounds.
J>ut hv this the colonies gained far more than thev lost.
This slender cord(;n of hostile sava<j^es tended to compact
each colony into a well-ori^^anized ]>ody p(jlitic. It must
not he forgotten that, however necessary government
may l>e in eveiy phase of society, it is always a hurden
and restraint, toleiated only as a safe<ruai(l against more
intolera])le evils. If, on the first settlinij: of the countiv,
the colonists had been free to range over the continent,
with no human enemy to hold them in check, what chance
would there have been of preserving the civilization and
law-abidiuii' habits thev had biou^ht with them from
home(' When all the more enterprising spirits had
l>ecome hunters an<l trappers, vin/((yeurs and rand»lers
through the wilds of the backwoods, aiid the broad prai-
ries bevond them, what means would have been left for
maintaining a defensible settlement on the coast, to ket.'p
up the intei-est (^f, and tlu^ intercourse with, the U" ther-
country:' and to resist the attacks of Euro})ean maraud-
ers who, a^ it was, utteily de-;tn>ye(l ^ome of the earlier
eol( mil's .'

THE INITKD STATIvS

This cordon of .sava<^e enemies maintained the martial
energies of the earliei- settU'i-s by eallini^ tliem at times
into activity; while it preserved their civil orjjfanization.
their social relations, and their industry, hy drivintr them
to avail themselves of the agricultural, pastoral, and syl-
van resources already in their possession, or easily within
their reach; thus establishing the colony on a soli«l, prof-
itable and permanent footing, tending rapidly to enable
it to sustain itself against all enemies. The truth is
that, in spite of the bloody and disastrous Indian wars,
of which we hear so much in colonial history, a.s so<m as
the growth and prosp(jritv of any of the colonies really
called for an expansion of its borders, an energetic effort
of the colonial government. <'ven without aid from Eng-
lan<l, seldom failed to procure for it all the i-oom needed
for the growth of the colon}' fur years to come.

The case is quite different when the attempt to est^ib-
lish a colony is made in a country where another people
are already in occu])ation of the soil. If inferior in war-
like qualities, in arts and civilization, the natives may be
easily con<piered, but not easily exterminated. However
merciless the slaught«'r in war, the convenience and th^'
necessities of the conquerors almost always lead them to
s})are no small part of the subjectefl people.

The Spaniards conquered Mexico and Peru three hun-
dred and fffty years ago; and they proved themselves
merciless con(|uerors, slaughtering a large portion of two
ninnerous nations, and strif)ping the sui'vivors of every-
thing that could swell the spoils of the victors. From
that day they became, and are still, the dominant cla.ss ;
but they utterly failed ia supplant the native raee ; and,

rXMASKKh.

uliilf till' «k\sci*iulaiits of tlu' Spanianls in Mexico litth*
exccfd (Hie million, tliosc of the conqnoivd projilc innul»rr
seven times tliat annmnt. Tlie case is very similar in
l\'ru. The cultivation of tlii' soil, and tlu' arts most
t'ssrntial tt) the support and comforts of life arc still de-
p«'nd«'nt in l»otli countries on the lahour au<l skill of the
jnimitive rae(>. The Spanisli colonies in America st'om
to ha VI' made little pro«,Mi'ss in civilization ; and of late,
after half a century of freedom from tho domination of
old Spain, their course seems to l»c rather retro^nade
than progressive.

More than two centuries liave passed since tlu' Eu'^lisli
l»e«^an to make those territorial acquisitions in India,
which now enduuce the whole antl more than the whole
of tliat givat and fertile peninsula. Yet the Dritons in
India are, to tliis day, hut an army of occuj)ation, <,'arri-
.soninj; tJie stn>ni;-hol<ls which comntand the strate<^'tic
and connnercial points, and the lines of communication.
There is not in India even the send»lance of a British
colony, A vast, industrious, and skilful native p<»pula-
tion fill all the lower an<l numv of the hi;jher callings l»v
wliich the mass of Eun)peans, in their own country, earn
a living; and the clinuite in India is a yet more insuper-
ahle har to emigrants from Europe than the.pnvsence of
an indu.strious and skilful native population.

But even where tlie climate is as suitaMe to the con-
(piering iuNaders as to the conquered natives, it is ditti-
cult for tlie new-comers to supplant the others.

Few countiies are more blessed with j)hysical advan-
tages — more favoured in soil, climate and geographic po-
sition and f'-atui-es, than Ireland. If the Noinians of

THK rXITKI) STAIKS

\>,i

Knj^land, and their Anglo-Saxon followers, in tlu'ir •xpo-
(litions to Ireland in the twelfth eentury, had found it
an uninhabited country, in no lonjr time thev would
have added to the dominions of th<' English soveieigns
territories ecjuivalent to thirty English counties, differ-
ing little in the character of their population, and in the
cidture and development of their resources, from th«-
fifty-two counties of England and W.ales. (ireat as the
wealth and power of England were even then, these
thirty new counties, homogeneous with those east of the
narrow Irish Sea, becoming jiractically a ])art of the
kinudom of England, would have added more than one-
half to its power: and Iieland would have been as much
and more akin to England than Northumberland to Kent.
Jjut as it was, Ireland has proved to England as much
a source of weakness as of strength. The invaders from
I'ji'dand found Ireland, in the twelfth centurv, already
(»ccuj)ied by a numerous people in the occupation of the
soil ; and they i)ersistently, although unsuccessfidly, re-
siste<l the invaih'rs. The superiority of tlu' latter in
civilization, discipline, arms and armour, and also in race,
rendered numbeis unavailing against them ; for the con-
(juerors of Iielan*l were of the Teutonic race, which has
proved itself superior to all others. The con((uered peo-
ple were Celts, a race endowed also with high (pialitics,
and inferior only to the Teutonic. Moreover, the de-
scendants of the old Danish and other Scan<linavian
invaders and settlers in Ireland were now, by this new
invasion, mingled with the Celtic ])eople, and were
ecpially zealous in opposing the iiew-comers. The result
was that Ireland, although concpiered and held by the

rXMASKKF»

1 I

Kiiirlisli for seven eeiitmies, is Irlsli still. TIk' <Vltic
jxipulation, not l)ein<; (>xt«'niiinate«l. but only siil»jeete«i.
multiplied in spite of the sul»j«"et position they held in
their own country ; find th»*v eiii^rossed all the lalM)rious
and lower occupations fonuin;^ an impassable barrier to
the influx of colonists who mit^ht have broULjht EngliNh
industry, arts, habits, and idras into Ireland. In the
earlier half of this century the j)opulatiim rosr to much
more than ei;;ht millions, of which nunilM-r seven nnllions
were of Celtic blood, and not on«- and a half millions wei*-
the descendauus of the armed or of the pacitic invaders
of the country centuries aj'o — Ireland was Irish still.

It is only since about the midilh- of this century that
famine and other powerful inHueiices, amon«{ which the
chief v.as the increased facilities and inducemmts to
emigration, have cut down the population of Irtdand by
nearly three millions. One would hav*- stipposed that
Irehmd would be now less Iri.sh than it wa**. Hut the
dominant people have utterly faileil to assimilate the
Iri.sh to themselves. The anim«>sitv of th«' ( 'eltic Irish
against the English and their connection with England,
and yet more against the class in their own coJintry who,
although with them there for centuries, have not Income
one with them, (and whom they .still call Saxons never
was, perhaps, more intense tlian at this day.

When we consider the uttiT failure ofthe Euirlish to
colonize India,and their slow and .sma'l success in coloniz-
ing Ireland, where complete and sjieedy success seemed
certain; and when we contrast thes<* faihm's with tluir
unrivalled and wonderful succe.s.s in North America, wr
must see tliat great natural and social causi*s placed in-

TMK rMTKI) STATKS.

><u|M'ral»lc nItstacKs in tlu'ir wny in tlic fornuT casrs, aii«l
thixt a rare c<»iiil»inati()n of ciirnnistances attonUMl tlu-iii
the <^n('at<'st, facilities in tlic last. It is true tliat the
people of (Jreat liiitain, tlie Knj^^lisli and lowlainl Sf()tch,
are j)eculiarly fitted for tli«'se great enterprises of colon-
ization, and that tin* French an<l Spaniards attempting
similar undertakin«rs, often with <M<'ater means, never
achieved half as much. But, in the planting of the thir-
teen colonies on the North America!! coast, eve! ythi!ig
comhi!ied U) secu!'e success so speedy a!id per!na!H'nt,
that the ]iisto!'y of colonizatio!i ca!! tell us of !iotliii!g
that rivals it.

Let the !-eadei' take in the full impo!'t of this fact: In
ma!!y parts of this newly settled cou!it!y the wide ex-
l)a!ise of vir<du soil continued to vield so !-eadv aiid
ahunda!it a i-eturi! to the lahours of the hus1)a!id!nan, as
he!'e ii!st i!i the histoiv of man to afford a i«'liahle series
of facts, fiom which could be infeiTed the !'ate of possible
inc!ease of the human species, whei'e populatio!i does not
piess upo!i the mea!is of subsistence ; the increase not
beinir checked 1)V the dif!ic!!ltv of obtai!ii!ig food. Before
the s(,'ttlement of these Ei!glish colo!iies, who ever l!ea!-d
of any legion of count!'y doubli!ig its population in
eightee!! o!' twenty years by i!atu!'al inciease :*

In commenti!!g on thesple!!did success of this cohmiz-
atio!i which, i!i little !nore than two centu!-ies, expa!ided
itself, in a belt a thousa!id miles wi<le, tVom the Atlantic
to tlie Facitic, over a region neaily as laige ;is Europe,
we !nust not foim't that the causes of this success, botli
moi-al and !naterial, operated far more vigoi'ously in the
eai-1iei- tlian in the latter pait of that tiiue. This becomes

ni
th

Cll

r.N.MA'Ki:)).

l:i

I'S, JlU'l

I tlu'm
iat the
Scotch,
■ col on -
mpting
, iK'Vcr
tie tliir-
rythinj^
naivnt,
nothing

ict: In
villi' I'X-
uly an«l
[man, as
(» series
dossil lie
loi's not
ase not
Before
'V heard
ition in

coloniz-
\pan<le<l
Atlantic
Europe,
'ss, lioth
y in the
heconios

j)lain to ns when wr consi<ler the moral and material in-
riuenc»'s j)roniotin«( this prosperity and proj^M'ess.

As we have said, tin; colonists, hein;^' Knj^dislniien,
hroufjht with them En<dish institutions and civilization.
Tlu'V were an enerjjfetic and enterprisinir detachm»'nt of
the Anglo-Saxon people, traineil up in the practical Eng-
lish school of laws, liberties, and ac<piired and \ested
rights; not in modmi theories as to hunuin eipiulity and
the so-called inalirnahle rights of man. A^ colonists they
were long protected, inriut'nc«'(l, nnd in a measure con-
troileil hv the mother countrv. which had freiiurnt c<Mn-
munication with tlie remoti'st settlements. Many of the
more suceessful cohmists, «'S|weially in the South, sent
their sons, and not seldom, their daughtei-s to Englan<l
for t>dueation, continiiinyf this for LC»'n«'iations, and still
sp.aking of England as 'home.' And such it still w;us in
the hest sense ; for from thence was drrivrd almost all
that was worth pres«'rving in politieal. social, and in-
tellectual attaiinuents. For in religion, law, letti'i-s,
morals, manners, America, with all its claims to invent-
ing an«l cajiacity for ap}>ropriating. has done little to im-
prove, much to corrupt that which it has derived from
England.

The earlier emigrants, notstiictly English, who soutrht
li<Mi»es in these English colonies, were of d»*Ncri|>tions
hio-hlv ilesirahle in this new countrv. hut were not
mnnerous enouifh to chanjje materiallv tin- eharaeter of
tlu' population. On the levocation of the edict of
Nantes, in 1()<S.'), many French Protestants, a class in
character, eilucation, au<l industry Far ahove the averae*'
of the French people, sought houies in America to «<cape

TIN. t.MTKI* nT.\TK>

jK'i'Nrcution for tln-ir faitli. Many lowlaiKl StMjtcli. ami
Soott'li-Irisli from tin* North-t-ast of Ireland, zvalons
Protestants an<l noted for tlM*ir indnstrv and thrift,
migrated to these colonies. Under tlie patronage of the
crown and of some of the colonial govenniients several
numeHMis ]M»dies of ai'ricnitiiral einiiri-ants from Nortliein
an«l IVot^stant (lermanv wen- hronirlit into the countrv.
The original colonists of New York were Hollanders,
so that the jK'ople of twelve out of thiil<*en colonies
Were «»f Teutonic origin, and their ( 'hri>tianity was re-
itresented l»v Pnjtestant elmrehes: Marvland or ijither
iiciltiiiiore and its neiuhl>ourho<»l iK-inir the only settle-
nient where th«' Celtic race and tlie church of Rome
wen* strongly represented.

The government with whieh the colonists wen- in
actual and daily contict. on all the most vital points of
political and social life, was the colonial government of
each colonv. Thesr* had lM.'en nirxlelled aft4*r that of
(ireat Britiiin : an<l, at a lat«'r flay, they were not so
much changed as modified into the State governments,
to adapt them to tlieir new conditif>n of independence of
the British crown. Internally the cliange was not great ;
the political and legal institution-- of the individual
statf's continuing to hear the marks of their Anglo-Saxon
origin, not only stamped upon them, hut interwoven in
their fihre. The Anglo-Saxon race. long and overwhelm-
ingly pre«lominated in the ]>opulation, controlling i)ublic
afi'airs, populai- opinion, and the nhole tone of society.
The ' En<dish connnon law ' is still of force in almost
every stat*^ of the Union, ♦•xcept on those points on
wliieli its provisions have l»een expressly alt^'red hy

rNMAsKKD.

i:.

stiitute. In fact tlir law luis Ix-'cn so luwe-li altcrrd in tlie
lavt forty vcars in Kni^land, tluit nion> of tlu' old KiiltHsIi
connnon law is, or was lately in forcv in soint' of the
states than in Kn«;lan<l itself.

These lo(;al ^governments were sustained chiftly hy
direct taxes, which were seldom hunhnsome in amount.
Now there is nothin;^' n>en are more vi;^alant ajjjain.st and
more intolerant of than hi^^h and unnecessary taxation,
when they know that the money comes out of their own
|iockets. And this each man must know uutler the t)pen
and honest system of «lirect taxation. Tiiis secuHMl hoth
Jionesty and ec«)nomy in the expenditure of the revenues
of the colonies, and afterwards of the States. There
was in conseijuence just *;overnment enouj^di to protect
.society, hut no further interference with men's private
pursuits, under pretence of takin^^ care of, and henetiting
in«lividuals. There was no fund to maintain a wide
patronage, to he used as the means of hrihin*,' and huy-
in^ up supporters of those in power; and men andjitious
of puhlic life uu)i\'. often impoverished than enriched
themselves hv holdin<^ otHce.

The vast expanse of territory west of the colonies, an<l^
for a long- time, of the states, served as a vent and safety-
valve to lelieve these not too ri<fid and exactinir L'oveni-
ments of the task of controlling ihe more restless and en-
terprising, ami also the more turbulent and criminal por-
tion of I he population. The dangerous classes, as the
French call them, those who in most countries task the
vigilance of the police, and the energies of the govern-
ment to watch and control them, here, from the tirst
settlement of the country, stea<lily tendi'd towuids the

THK INITKh STATKS

^a(k-\voi»tl.s. 'llu'ir waicliudul Wcas ' \N i-slNvaid ho!'
Tlu'V s«»ii«rlit tlif unn*strain«'(l and advciitmoiits lift' of
the fnniticr, Tlie lM«tU'r rlass l>ecariu' liunters and trap-
pers in tlie fur trade, tin- worse dividc<l their energies
U'tween traftieinir witli and ehratin'' tlie indians. and
slang]»t»'rin«,' th«-ni out of t\\i- way «»f a<lvancing eivil-
iziition,

Hi'rr we nnist sav that tlir liistorv of tlie eolonirs and

• «

of the Tnited SUites and ninnlK'iless d«K*uuients connect-
ed Avith that historv, tells us of ])eaee and war >vith the
Indian triU's. of ne<rotiation, treaties and tmttic with
them. Hut thev do not and eannot tell us all that
oeeunvd hetwe^-n tlie two i-aees, hut only what passed on
the public stage. B»*hind tin- scenes, from the early
times of the eoloni«*s until now, an mieeasinjr skirmish
has hern waif«'«l alonj; the reeedin*' frontier 4>n which the
indian y»'t lingns. Here he stan<ls face to face with
persevering rnemi«'s who have Ix'en for centuries intru<l-
ing on his haunts. Many of these enemies are there,
because civiliz^^l s<K*ietv. niuibi<' lon«;er to tolerate their
presence, had thrust them out beyond its pale. We will
not stop to censure or defend this conflict of two
hinidreil years. Perhaps the natuiij and j)*xsition of the
tM'o races renderetl it unavoidabh*. But we will illus-
tmte l>y an anecdote the feelings and the deed.s en<'-en-
d(*red amonfj the whites on the frontier.

" We who first came out to this neighbonrhoml lived a
rough life " said an old settler to a traveller in the
West." We were clo.se on the indian frontier, and the
red devils never far from us. Do you know, young man,
how I sometimes got my venison ^"

I'N.MASKKI*.

" I .su})pose yi)ii liuutcil ;iinl sliut tlio (U-er," said
the travel Kt.

" Not always, younijfster " aiiMWcrt'd tlie old man with a
irlanco at once cunnin<rM!i(l rieice. '* More than once, wljile
huntint,Mn the w )o(ls, I have heard the eraek of a lille: and
creeping steatliily that way have come upon a ledskin
rippinj^ up a fini; buck or doe, whieli he liad killed when
I heard the shot."

" He liad the advantage of you " said the traveller
" heing before hand with you in the sport. "

"Not so!" said tlie old frontiersman 'I had the ad-
vantage of }jim."

" How so ' What did you do ;""

1 looked carefully around, and listened for a while ;
and if the signs showed that he was a single hunter,
witl» no companions near —

" What then i*" exclaimed the traveller.

" I shot the Indian, and took the deer."

" You did ! That was verv like murder. But of
course it was in time of wai "

" Murder!" said the old man scornfully. " We ilid not
give it that name on the frontier. Some people may call
it so now. 1 can not remember whether there was war
or peace between the g«^vernment and the tribes just
then. But tliere was seldom such peace Itetween us bor-
derers and the red-skins, that we lost an opportunity of
paying oft* old scores, when there was no witness it hand
to bring us into trouble."

The colonies and afterwards the States usually enjoyed
almost complete exemption from the heaviest burden
upon the resources of nations. The greatest outlay a

I'll

* 1*.

TIIK CNITI.n STATKS

^ovi'ininont usually lias to luake is ox[m'HiI«'<1 on tliosr
t'lalxinit*' jufparations lu'ccssary to secure the country
a;,miiist the aniltitiou ami hostility of near an<l powerful
nei;L(li hours. Armies and fleets, fortresses an«l arsenals,
stored with costly materials of wai", are usually the ^n-eedy
devourers of a nati<jn's revenues. Hut the Kn;^dish colo-
nies felt little of this hurdi'U. The task and cost of
defeiidin*^ them fell chi«ffly on the mother-country.
And when at length they hecame states, and had woiked
tlieir way throuj^di the stru^'^de for independence, they
found them.selves without any stron<^^ nei^hluMU" on the
same continent with them, nor in the least danger of
invasion; and thus unth-r no necessity to expend much
in keeping- u)) a large military force. For <'ighty years
after l7tSl the permanent military and naval force of
the United States, when compared with that of other
countries, was, or seemed, ridiculously snudl for their
resources. The country enjoyed a unicjue exemption
from that heavy buideii with which most nations were
coujpelled to saddle themselves.

l>ut the chief and most obvious source of prosperity
to the colonists and to their descendants for several gen-
erations, securing to them immense success in their agri-
cultural enterprises, sprang from the fact that they were
cultivating virgin soil.

If we could trace the history «)f a«nicidture from the
first invention of the plough, we would he apt to tind
that the unfailing process, in every land, has been to
wear out the field to barrenness by successive croppijigs,
then to clear a new field and go through the same rout-
ine foi' extractinu" fi'om it all that could be turned into

I'N.MASKIin.

profit. Not until tin* wliolr of lii- land iiad Itecn toIjImmI
of its fi'itiiity •lid any faiiiicr tliink (»f usinn" nuans and
Ittliourto n't'upnate the soil. IJnl the colonist in Amer-
ica, and hi.s (h'seendants for ^generations, seldom felt
themsc'lvi?s to l>e refhieed to this lahorious and irksome
neeessitv. Viriiin soil and fertile land seemed to be here
without lindt. And if, in a j^eneration or two, the once
fertile rields in his nt'iyhliourh<K)d prove^l to he exhausted,
(he farmer had only to move westward.

' To-iiiorrow to fi-ewli wnods and pftsturea new,'
This eravino- of thr farmei' for fnsli and fertile soil nfavo
(juite as powerful an inn)ulse, as the enterpiisini^" and
enei^etic character of the ])eople, to the rapid ext«'nsion
of st'ttlements across the whole breadth of the contiuiJit.
The American farmer, moving' steadily westward for
<.(<'nerations, has been sowiuLf his seed in the \ irgin soil
enrichecl by centuries of vegetation perishiiiu- on and
manuiin*;' the spot in wdiich it o-rew. He has been like
a <lairy-nian who couhl churn ;i vast (juantity of butler,
liavin<r Jvn uidinated amount of cream to skim.

iiv here lemark that it is curious to trace,

through certain returns as to nativities found in the IJ.
S. census for ]<So(), liow the natives of ditl'erent states on
the Atlantic coast, in ndgratinn- westward, generally
followed the parallels of latitude of their old li.iuies.
and that where, in the South, they in sonie cases \aiie<I
from it, their cour.se oftener tended to the North than Lo
the South. Doubtless thev were Landed bv a natural
craving for a cooler climate, more congenial to people of
the (,'aucasian race than that in which thev had been
located.

u n^

TlfK CXITEI) STATES (IXMASKKI).

Could we count, weigli, and measure all the va.st and
unique advantages accumulated upon the people of thest^
States beyond those of other countries, we would not
wonder at the rapid lioo<l of prosperity that poured in
upon them, and on which, for a time, they swam so
buoyantly ; nor that multitudes of the needy and the
malcontent in the populous countiies of western Europe
turned their faces towards it, as the Israelites to the
promised land.

CHAPTER \U.

J low Long Wdi* this Siii<ju/ar ProKiHrltii fo LdM ?

Was its permanence seeui-eil by the operation of per-
manent causes ^ Were there no evil ai^eneies of any
kind at work sapping its foun<]ations '. We will search
them out and try to arrange them in their natural order.

We have seen that the people of these English settle-
ments on the Atlantic coast, while they continued colo-
nies, and after they became States, enjoyed the inestim-
able blessing of living undei- governments which were
efficient and yet not burdensome. Tliey aimed at
nothinij more than to a<lminister justice amonir the Deo-
pie, and to protect them against ioreign enemies. And
this is all that any people need demand of any govern-
ment under which they live. Everything else the peo-
ple, either as individuals, or through voluntary associa-
tions, can do better for themselves. Under political
institutions, which trammelled neither their occupations
nor their movements, the people throve and spread so
rapidly, that there soon sprang up, far west (jf the
States on the coast, a need for the organization of new
local governments, like those of the States from whicli
this swelling tide of emigrants liad issued.

For that debatable land on which the long and bloody
skirmish was ever being fo\ight between the native red
man and the intruding white adventurei-s — this moving

u ':'

•)•)

rm; imiki) sr.\ri>

frontier was withdrawing into the far west, while behind
it tlie wilderness was becoming, step by step, a settled
and cultivated country; bearing the marks and yielding
the proihicts of eivilized industry, the fruits of which
are eagerly sought aftei* in the markets of tlu' comniei-
cial world.

But in the mean while an unforeseen change was
taking place in owe nature and aims of government
throughout the country. And this change, at first slow
in movement, i)roceeded with ever accelerating steps,
which we must trace out briefly.

The better to carry on the war begun in 177<J for the
establishment of their independence of the mother coun-
tiy, the thirteen colonies had united themselves into a
confederacy by a treaty called ' The Articles of Confed-
eration,' which by express agreement were to be perpet-
ual. They continued united under this treaty thro\igh
the greater part of the war, and seven years after. Be-
coming then dissatisfied with this treaty, the States,
actint>- as States, set aside ' The Articles of ( 'onfedera-
tion,' which were to have been perpetual, and made with
each othei' another treaty called 'The Constitution of
the United States,' more precise in ttn-ms and more
stringent in conditions, which created, under the form
of a federal goveiiiment, a connnon agent for each and
all the States for certain specified purposes. The States
endowed this common agent with certain specified
powers and with no others ; for the powers not granted
were expressly reserved to the individual States. A
year or two elapsed after this treaty went into operation
between most of the states, before all acceded to it.

rSMAsKKh.

2.S

The purj)Oses to In* Sfrvod l»y tliis au'ont of all tlir
statos, aii'l ^vhiell tliry nanuvl ' The Govcninu'nt of the
United Stat«'.s.' wviv (issentially these: To secure tlie
friendly union and intercourse hrtween the states, and
the people of the states; and to present them as one
united hody, in ])eace and in war. to all foreii^m powers.

The States however did not cea^e to hr each a sove-
rt-ii^n body politic within its own limits, in all matters
not expressly dfUi^ated to tlie common agent. Tln'
forminiT <>f the l^nion did not i;«'nerate an allegiance to
a sfO'ernment or to a countrv. Each eitizi-n <»f rach
State owed alle<dance to his own State. On the forma-
tion of the Uni(m, at first rnch-r the 'Articles of ('onft'd-
eration,* afterwards under the 'Constitution of tlie
United States,' lie, as W(dl as Ids State, assumed a new
ol)liiration : that of observin<jf in ij^ood faitli the terms of
the treaty oi Union. Not ev^en the othcials of the new
ifovernment ever took anv oath of alh.'ijfiance to it. as a
tfovernment, or to the countrv within its jurisdiction.
The only oath taken was, to observe faithfullv tlie teruis
of the treaty of union between the States. As to tlie
perpftuity of the Union, nothing- is exj>ressly sai<l of it
in the ' CVmstitution of the Unit«'d States.' Doubtless
it was meant to be as perpetual as the good faith in
observiuiT the conditions on which the States had entered
into the T^nion, and no longer. To assume tliat the
parties that made the compact of unic^n on certain speci-
fied conditions, nieant these conditions to l>e temporary,
but tlie union leased upon them perpetual — that gross and
pei-sistent violation of the terms of the agreement, by
some parties to it, would not release the otiiers from

't.i'

:>4

THK CNITKI) STATIN

their olili^^ation — would Ik* p»ttin«( tlio most alisunl ainl
illo^ncal construction on tlie contract.

T\\(' ])eoj»li' of each State looked to tlieir own State
government for the protection of their personal, social,
and pi-oprietary riiihts. The laws of the State regulated
all social relations, those of husband and wife, parent
and child, master and seivant, maniage. inheritance,
guardianship ; and all proprietary rights, as title to land,
and to other property, contracts, and in general all those
questions as to rights and wrong's, for the decision of
which men appeal to courts of law and equity. The
law of the State fixed the statilft of individuals in the
stat(', such as the (pialificiitions necessary before a man
can exercise the franchi.se, as a voter, or hold office, or
serve &.s a juror in the courts of the State.

Under the terms of the tr<;aty of (Tnion the States
had delegated to tliei; comnnm agent, the Federal gov-
ernment, exclusive jurisdiction over certain matters ;
amcmg which Were: 'To defines and punish piracies and
felonies on the hi<rh seas,' — and ' Offences a<;ainst the
law of nations,' — Counterfeiting the secui'ities and coin
of the United State's '---'And offences against the po.st
office, etc. But, with these exceptions and a few others,
it was to the government of their respective States
that the people looked for the puni.shment of all those
offences, whether against persons, property, or society,
which governments find it necessary to punish. Omit-
ting the offtncos specially excepted above, all crimes
conunitted in a State were tried by the sovereign
authority of the State, under its own laws, in its own
courts, and before a iurv of its citizens. If a man is

UNMASK KI)

lian<,'C(l for a capital crime, it is the State tliat hanpfs
liiin. Sliould tlic case call for the exercise of the par-
flonini:^ power, the governor of the State panlons him.
But ishouM the (»overnor refuse, and the President of
the Uniteil States assume to grant liim a pardon, the
convict would bo hanged even with such a pardon in his
liand. It would be mere waste paper. The civil juris-
dittion of the state courts was as broad as the criminal.
It was not to relieve themselves of tlieir jurisdiction as
soverei<ni States that thev contracted with each other
for the creation, for certain speciHed purposes, of a
connnon agent, now known as the ' Government of the
United States.'

Such was the theory of that c<^)mplex political
organization consisting of the goveniments of the indi-
vidual States, and of the States united with each
other.

As we have already said, the indivi<lual States levie<l
the ver}'- moderate revenues, need«'d for the support of
their governments, chiefly by direct taxes. For instance
the little state of South Carolina, with a population iii
1<S.")0 of ()(nS,.")00 of whieli oN'),000 were negro slaves, for
several years before and after tiiat time expended an-
nually less than $400,000 for the support ('f all the de-
partments of its government; au'i this proved enough
to secure the efficient administration of the law, and
preserve good order in the state. We V»elieve that this
is but a fair sample of the econi*-;!}- observed in the ex-
penditures of most of the states.

But' their common agent, the government of the
United States, had som»' costly duties to p<*rfoi-m, for

ffl

:^!

1 .

1 f

, m

^!!

}

1 '

•J

• 1'^:

.1.

2<>

TIIK rXITKI) STAI'liS.

instiinco; tliosc of providinL;' tlie means of defence against
for('i;4'n enemies, and tlie temporary care and <,'overn-
ment of tlie larL,^e pul)lic territories out ide of the borders
of the States, until hy the immiL;ration and permanent
settlements made, sutHcient and suitahle portions of this
territory' had become jjopulous enough to support each
a state <,'overnment. In connection with the case of
these wild territories, the Federal o-oveinment was
charLi^ed with dealiiin' with the indian triiies; a nice and
troublesome tluty, and one which the agents of the gov-
erinnent soon learned how t(; make very costlv to the
government, and veiy profitable to themsrlves.

To enable the Federal uovernment to fultil these and
some other duties, power had been granted to it ' To lay
and collect tax( s, duties, imposts, and excises,' and that
withoiit any limitation I'xcept that 'All duties, imposts,
and excises shall be uniform thi-ouirhout the United
states.' Being thus furnished with the nx.'ans of fccd-
inu; itself, this child of the States i>iew and li-rew, and its
appetite for jiower and appropriation grew with what it
fed on, until it was able to eat up its paients; and it
has already eaten up a good many of them — by convert-
ing them into con(picre<l provinces.

The truth is that the 'Government of the United
States' Avas the offspring of a stupid and shortsighted
treaty betAveen the several States. Beini'- entrusted
with the power of unlimited taxation it gradually, yet
ra[)idly and naturally, tended towards the usurpation of
powers not granted to it, to th(i overthrow of the essen-
tial riohts of each State, and to a total chaniic in the
character and operative etf'ects of government on the

rXMASKKI).

•27

tonfe«lerati<)!i. This unt'.\peet4^Hl nsiilt truds lo provo
tliat <,'ov«rninonts aiv not pieces of nieeljanisni, that ean
he ordered aii«l ohtaine<l acconliiiL,^ to contract with speci-
fications; hut germinate, grow, and perish, like other
productions of nature; and tlmt some kinds of tliis natu-
ral pro<Uiction, called goveninient, are more sliort-lived
than others.

Tlje power of le\ying taxes, and of ajipropiiating the
proceeds, is the power of governing. No other political
right or comhination of rights, can long resist it. The
Federal government, in order to fulfil the duties for
which it ^^a.s create<l: namedy, to raise and support
armies; to pivjvide and maintain a navy; to estaMish
and maintain courts for the trial of cases arising out of
matters placed within its jurisdiction, and for some other
duties with wliich it was chartred — this Federal f'overn-
ment neeih^l a ixivenue larcjer than the united revenues
needed hy all the individual States. From the first
existence of this government it proceeded to raise its
I'e venue chiefly by cUities and imjx)sts on imported
foreign goods, an in<lirect mode of taxing people, at
which they are the less apt to grumble, as no man sees
how much he pays of this in<liiect tax. Having now
occasion to employ a large number of jwrsons in various
otticial capacities, the new government is at once in pos-
.session of a large and wide-spread patronage, whicli the
politicians in office know how to u.se, and to increase for
their own pur[)Oses. This soon gave the Federal govern-
ment an influence over self-seeking individuals, of every
class, vastly greater than that of all the State govern-
ments: for their exjx'nditures were small and economical,

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TUK UXFTKI) STATES

aii'I tlu'ir pfitrona^'e liiiiit«*«l in pn)fHjrtioii. Tin; States
weiv each practically uiuler U^mi to use economy in
i-aisinir and (lislnirsiiiLC their revenues ; for liij'h taxes in
any one State would liave dnven lx>tli f>opulati<jn and
capital across its horders into the neighlMjurin<^ states.

A large region of country is seldom or perhaps never
homogeneous, (.'limate, geographic features, and other
causes had marked out certain difft-rences hetween the
Northern and the Southern States; and the distinction
in character hetween them grew ujore manifest as yeai*s
rolled on.

From the first planting of the cohmies, the many con-
venient ports, the comparative hanenness of the soil, and
abundance of timber in New England and the adjacent
regions, directed the attention of the colonists there to
shipbuilding, maritime affair's and the fisheries. They
also carried on a large trade in j>eltiy and lundjcr.
While the people of the Nortliern colonies did not neg-
lect to avail themselves of what fc-rtile soil was at hand,
they early actjuircd the hal'it^ and characteristics of a
trading, seafaring, and. to some extent, of a manufactur-
ing people.

But the climate an«l soil of the more S<»utln-rn colonies
Ijeing found to be peculiarly a«lapted to the production
of agricultural staples in great demand in commerce,
these colonies became almost alt<Ji;ethei" ajjriculturai
communities ; and the nature of tlieir exports led to
their having far more intercoui-se with the mother coun-
trv than with their NortheiTt nei<rhboui-s. The revolu-
tion, which changed them from colonies into States, did
not change their interests and pursuits. But it revolu-

UNMASKKI).

211

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tioniz«'<l their political connections. Tlicir Xortljeni
confederates, seeinif tlieni ir. the eniovnient of <'reat
profits fi'om the foreign demand for their pectdiar pro-
ducts, set tlieir wits to work to devise the means of
diverting as much as possible of the proceeds of Southern
crops to themselves in the >«oith. Their ingenuity, per-
severance, artful cond (illations, aii<l utter want of scru-
ple, made them successful in time, and for a long time.
Yet the Federal government conducted its aH'aiis with

derahh

til

aps

.'conomy lor some
duriii'' one .sln^rt war. J)urinif the Presidencv of John
Quincy Adams, for instance (from liS2.") to J.S2!J) the
yearly expenditure of the government little exceeded
$^1 :i,000,000 ; vastly more indeed than that of all tlie
state-governments, but a mere trifle compared with its
own expen<liture of late years.

Yet long l)efore that date, the tendency to ])ervert
taxation from its leiiitimate ol>iect, the raisin<>- of
revenue for the support of the government, to the fraud-
ulent aim of making })rofitahle private pursuits in par-
ticular parts of the confederacy, was plainly manifest.
Under the influence of the people of the Northern and
less agricultural states, the Federal government early
laid the foundation of what was afterwanls called ' the
turif system for the protection of American industry '
that is of their ow ii occupations and enterprises in the
North.

Some almses in taxation and finance originate*! almost
at the birth of the government. The people of New
Entfland have lonu' shown i»Teat talents and no scruples
in taking care of their own interests at other people's

♦ IV

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TIIK lNlTi:r) STATKS

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cost; an<l tlir inlial»itaiits of the New Eiii^liind coast,
liein;;' niueli occupied in tlie fisheries of tlie North
Athuitic, tliey lia<l tlie art to persuade the Fi'deral jli^ov-
ernnient tliat tliese fisheries were very important to tlio
whole country, not merely in supplyin*,' it with salted
fish, hut as a nursery for seamen; without whom the
confederati<jn could never hecome a j^reat naval power.
The government was induced to s^nve a hounty of so
much per ton on all the vessels fitted out for the fish-
eries. Fur fiftv years or so. every man in the United
States was taxed to pay part of the price of his salted
fish l)efore it was caught, and whether he wanted it or
not, in order to pay this hounty to the New England
fishini' craft, manv of which were fitted out to catch,
not so much the fish, as the hountv.

But this was not the usual mode in which the Federal
government undertook to make profitahle the occupa-
tions and enterprises of particular classes of the people,
and of particular parts of the country, at the cost of
others.

The industry of the Southern States was directed,
perhaps IjeyomI even tlie growing of the food needed at
home, to the cultivation of certain crops wdiich found
their chief and hest markets in foreign countries. The
most profiLahle use to which the Soutliern agriculturist
could apply his land, labour, and skill, was growing
these crops in such demand abroad. In payment for
these crops exported, a great amount of foreign goods
came into the country; for the commodities sent out of
the country must be j>aid for b}" those that are brought
into it. They cannot be paid for in any other w^ay.

f '

INMASKi;!).

•I

('onmuTce is liascd npoii Ur- ixclian^c of coiimKulltics;
iiioncy is only tlie lucaiis of facilitatiiiLf, and measuring
tlie rate of tliat exchanL,'*', From tliese remarks may be
estimated the interest the people of tlie Soutli liad in
forei«Mi trade. So far as f(Hei<''n comm<j<litios came into
tlie country to pay for southern crops, these C(jmmodities,
or tlie pi-oceeds of them when soM, hehmged to southern
nien. Tlie Soutl>ern farmer and tlie foreign manufac-
turer drove, through intermediate agents, a profitable
trade with each other, in exchanging the proceeds of
their imbistry and capital. What a man has honestly
obtained he has a right to exchange with any other man
for his honest acquisitions.

The productions of the Northern States wxtc very far
from being in e(pial demand abroad. But many people
in the North bethought them that if they could shut out
the rivalry of the foreign manufacturer they might l)uild
up a profitable Inisiness for themselves ; that although
nature might have given to particular countries greater
facilitic's for the production oi certain commodities,
than it has given to their own, that advantage enjoyed
by foreigners might be more than counter-1 alanced by
obstructing the importation of their products. The
government was raisin!>- nine-tenths of the revenue
necessary for its support by duties on imported goods.
Some enterprising Northern men had the art to induce
it to go further, and to impose so liigh a duty on some
particular articles, that it became cheaper to manufacture
them at home, than to impt)rt them from abroad. The
first articles so taxed were w'ell chosen as the be^iinning
of this system of government protection ; for the

0'"

Tfll-; IINITKI) STATES

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iiuitciials wore piodiUHMl in the eoiuitrv in al>nrnlaiice.
A duty of .'JO per cent, (nl luilorcm whs imposed on all
iiiii)orted liats and shoes, and soon none hut Yani\eo
made liats could lie houglit ; hut a <;i)od hat cost nine or
ten dolhirs, and shoes and hoots rose in jjroportion. 'J'h*'
l)e(^ple of the Northern states soon found out that there
were a nuniher of other aitiides wldeh tlu-y couhl make
to great profit, if tlie government would only shut out
the cheaper and hetter ft)reign articles, hy laying a
heavy duty on them. Thus the mamifactiu'e of silken
goods has heen forced into a sort of hot house (existence
in the United States, wlwie no silk is produced, l)y
laying a duty of (iO per cent on foreign silks. For the
Northern States having a majority of votes in the
Congress of the United Stales, and their pe()})h; heing
nearly all of them eager to i.'ud)ark in some manufactur-
ing speculation, well jjrotected hy high duties against
foreign competition, it givulually came to pass that
there w^ere few articles that could he maile in the coun-
try at any cost hut that a high impost was laid on the
similar foreign articles, which Avould have undersohl
them in the same market.

The ohject of this system of imposts was to compel the
agriculturists, and more especially those in the South, to
huv from Northern manufacturers, hy discourau"in<x, and
even preventing the importati(;n of foreign goods. And
it was in a great measure successful, hut is no longer
profitahle. Jt huilt up a vast manufacturing interest in
the Nortli, not one-fourth of which would have tome
into existence in the face of foieign competition, and
wliich now even protection fails to make prosperous. It

I--

UNMASK KI).

:m\

(Iruint'il tlie South of its wealth in two ways: It coin-
jK'lIod tlie Southt'iJi iiian to pay far juore for every inan-
iifactured article than the natural price in the cheaper
and hutter market; and it lowered the price of Southern
produce by inipairini^ the forei^nier's means of ]tayin;^
for it. It can he shown tliat when the duties on foroi'm
jL^oofls were raised, the price of Soutliern produce fell,
and that when these duties were lowered the price of
Soutliern produce rose. Tlie Southern man was placed
in tins dilemma: If he su}>plied his ^^ants hy huyin;^'

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price

was rais(

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(hity paid to the ^'overnment. If he Ijoui^lit Northern

)ds li

I exorbitant price
The <j;;overnment by its fiscal legislation aimed at coiu-
pellinir tlie South to purchase the products of the North
at a hi^di price, and to sell to the North the products ol'
its industry at a low price. It made the South tributary
to the North.

Nothing could exceed Yankee greediness to appropri-
ate the proceeds of the industry of other people, liut
for that clause in the constitution declaring that " No
tax or duty shall be laid on acticles exported from any
State" the manufacturers would have procured a duty
to be laid on all raw cotton exported, in order that tlie
crop of the Soutli should not be sold to foieigners until
it had gone through the processes of manufacture in the
Northern cotton factories.

lias the reader (iver considered what is tlie origin and
true nature of that offence which is called smuggling?
Stealing, and robbery, and the destruction of your neigh-
bour's proj^erty, and a multitude of other acts, are

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TllK UNITED STATKS

criiiR'is in tlicir very nature, and Avere criminal before
any liuuian law ni^lertook to pnnisli them.

jjut there is in nature no sucli otfence as snuiLftilinrj.
An important ingredient in your natui'al liberty is the
right to cany tlu; proceeds of your industry, or any part
of your portable property, to the best market you can
find for it; and, when you liave exchanged it for other
commodities, you have naturally an e(|ual right to carry
your new ac([uisitions home Avith you. They arc as
much yours as tluit was, which you gave for them-
These are the natural and justifiable acts out of which
governments have manufactured the oftence of
smuggling. They create the crime by legislation; they
provide for its punishment ])y further legislation.

The United States aft'ords a striking example of these
abuses. The people of the NorUiern States, having a
majority of the votes in (Jongress, they had, when united
among themselves, the control of the government, and
sought to use it to their exclusive profit. In raising a
leveinie for the government, they, by the ingenious
arrangements of their tariti' acts, threw the burden of
taxation on the South, In expending that levenue they
bestowed a benefit on the North. They lowered the
value of Southern produce by impairing tlie foreigner s
means of paying for it; and they raised the price of
Northern manufactures by shutting out the competition
of foreign goods. They used the whole machinery of
government as if it had been designed for impoverishing
the South and enriching the North.

This method of i>lundering the South met with eai'ii-
est protest and strenuous opposition from that (piarter;

UNMASK K I).

and tlie tarifis for revenue and protection underwent
many iiuctuations. Tlie fact is, that there is an essen-
tial incouipati))ility between tlie two ol)jects of revenue
and protection. Just so far as a duty protects lioine
manufactures, it fails to yield any revenue; for it keeps
out foreitni i>'oods: and just so far as a dutv vields a
revenue from foreign goods imported, it fails to arioid
protection to the homo manufacturer. There were many
people at the North, to whom the raising of a large
revenue by the <rovernment was of vital interest, for
they protited by its expenditures. They were opposed
to duties so hi<di as to cut otf revenue from the ijfovern-
ment, while affording protecticm to the manufacturer, by
shutting out the goods of his foreign competitor. The re-
presentatives of the Southern States, by combining with
this class of plunderers, were more than once enable<l to
foil the measures of j;hat worse class of plundi'rers, who
advocated j)rotective duties .so high as to shut out
forei<{n ifoods.

On one occasion, about 1840, the government raised so
nuich more revenue by its tariff' than it could find imme-
diate use for, that it distributed several millions amonir
the States, in order to get rid of it — thus bribing them
with their own money. They never repeated this error,
but invented new ways of expending any sui'plus. The
natural remedy, in this anomalous case, would have been
to reduce the taxes; for it proved that more money had
been taken from the people, or fi'om some of them, than
was necessary for support of the government. But this
did not suit the Northern majoi'itv who iroveined the
country and plundered the South. To them taxation

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THE UNITKI) STA'I'KS

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was a Itlcssing. Tlie gi'catcr the revenue raised, the
rrioie Avas spent among themselves; for tliey took good
care tliat as little as possible of government money
should be expended in the South. The North measured
the value of the Union b""" the amount of tribute it
could draw from the South, in revenue paid to the
governnient, and in the profits of the Northern manufac-
turers while protected from foreign competition. The
South was learning to doubt the value of a Union, that
subjected it to such a continual drain on the proceeds of
their property and industry, mei'ely in order to fill tlie
pockets of their confederates. In 1859 the revenue
of the United States exceeded $80,000,000, nineteen
twentieths of which was raised by duties on foreign
goods ; and far the greater part of this, through the pe-
culiar arrangements of the tariif, was paid by the South ;
which also paid much more than $(S(),000,000 in excess
of tlie natural price, on the goods bought from Northern
manufacturers, who were protected from foreign rivalry,
Northern industry and enterprise were made profitable
by draining off the profits of the industry and enteriDrise
of the South.

The North throve. Of S80,000,000 of yearly govern-
ment revenue raised chiefly on the South, four fifths was
expended in the North. Of more than $80,000,000 per-
haps double that amount, of artificially contrived yearly
profits to protecte<l Northern manufacturers, the whole
was expended in the North. From the cheapened price
of Southern produce, artificially lowered by the protec-
tive taritt* which obstructed foreign tiade, a saving of
S()0,000,000, perhaps $80,000,000, accrued to the North.

UNMASKED.

X\i unknown amount, certainly i?2,000,000,000, borrowed
in Europe, to be invested in American rail-roads, canals,
manufacturing and mining corporations, city improve-
ments, an<l a tliousand other enterprises, Howed in a few
yeai*s into the country, and almost exclusively into the
Xorthem States. What country will not thiive, or seem
to thrive, as long as several hundred millions of dollars
more than its people earn, are annually ] oured into its
lap? More especially if it can, after a time, stop paying
even the interest of a great part of its borrowings ?

The object of the 'American System for the protection
uf industry' was simply to make the people of the
Southern States, as far as possible, the tax payei-s, those
•.>f the Northern States the receivers and enjoy ers of the
proceeds of taxation. This system of taxation was intro-
duce«l early and gradually, under many cunning pleas
and devices, at a time when the true principles of politi-
cal economy were little understood even by the best
informed men of the country. But it wo.-, firmly estab-
lished and openly avowed as soon as the pet)ple of the
Northern States, by their numerical superiority, had
acquired the control of the government created by the
'States for the maintenance of the rights of all the States
on a footing of jwrfect equality. For foitv years pre-
vious to the war of Scces,si(m the aim and the effect of
the policy of this common federal government, under
the control of the North majorit}', was to convert the
Southern States into tributary provinces.

Of coui"se this policy was bitterly denounced and
stienuously opposed by the representatives in Congress
from the South, and V)y the governments of most of the

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THE UiVlTKl) STATKS

Southern States. Persistence in it seemed at times to
threaten the continuance of the Union. But wlien
the indignation in the South rose to a <langerous point,
the politicians of the North combining with some from
the South, had the art to make some temporaiy C(jmpro-
mise, such as a reduction an<l modification of the tariff*,
which allayed the excitement.

The ti'uth is that indirect taxation and its effects are
sucli hidden an<l insidious things, that the}' are not
readily traced at a glance. It is impossible to make the
great body of the j)eople of any country see and under-
stand the ultimate effects of any chain of causes made
up of many links. You can swindle and plunder them
to any extent, so that you do it indirectly, adroitly, and
under plausible excuses'. Only the most intelligent
classes of the people in the South could be made to un-
derstand fully, how thoroughly and to what extent the*y
were robbed by their sworn confederates.

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(.CHAPTER IV.

The Negro Question.

Tliere was however anotlur matter than taxation,
tariffs, and tlie protection of industry, in nied<Uin*if with
wliich tliese Nortliern uienihers of tlie Federal Union
could not conceal their hostility to the South, and their
utt(M- want of faith in dealini,' with the treaty which
hound tlie States to each other, An«l tliis leads us to a
topic whicli mii^ht fill many pa<,^es.

A shallow philosophy prevailed in the last century,
and is not (piite exploded in this, winch taught that civil-
ization and barbarism, culture and ignorance, made all
the difference between peoples; that the characteristics
distinguishing different families, tribes, nations, and races
of men originated solely in the conditions under which
they had lived. They may have so originated ; but in
times so remote, and under the influence of causes so
powerful, and operating so long, that the effects have
moulded the physical and mental constitutions of differ-
ent races ; and to us these differences are, practically,
permanent.

He who travels over the earth will find very different
races of men distributed over its surface ; and he who
travels over the records of the past will find that very
different characteristics and careers have distinguished
these races from each other. Some have carried their

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THE UNITED STATES

social and political organization, and their intfllectual
attainments to very liigh points, yet always with some
marked shades of difference from those who rivalled
them. Others have attained only to a lower grade of
cultivation. Many races have never originate*! a civil-
* M. ', ' of their own, and with difficulty received and re-
tained that communicated to, or forced upon them by
others. Some have rapidly perished before the civiliza-
tion thrust upon them. The natives of some of the
ish 'r'^ '. tbe Pacific ocean, and particularly the Maoris
of ^e' , 7 'h.iid seem to be of this class. The North
American lii-'i-in. unless you include the Mexican, is not
likely c .vurvi\ an unmixed race. And there are in-

dications Isi hj.-t '-^ f r,;' mixed races do not piosper, and
in some cases are apt to die out.

In short the ascertained facts in the history of man-
kind indicate, not that Institutions originate races, but
that Races originate institutions.

We know nothing of the origin or causes of these
differences of race ; although many persons have lal)Our-
ed to trace them out. Some naturalists have gone so
far in their speculations as to trace the origin of one
class of beings of the hitdiost organization to their de-
velopment from othei-s of inferior types. We do not ob-
ject to their amusing themselves and other people with
these inquiries. But we must deal with facts better es-
tablished, and generally admitted to be true.

We believe that authentic history affords no proofs
that any human race or tribe, while continuing to occupy
the same country, ever changed those physical and
mental characteristics which distinguished them from

proofs
)ccupy
1 and
from

UNMASKED.

other races, except so far as they changed their races by
mingling their blood with that of strangers to it. Nor is
there distinct evidence of such changes occurring even
when such a race or tribe changed its country. From
change of condition they may deteriorate, improve, or
die out; but we have no proof that the characteristic
marks, indicating the race from which they sprung, will
not cling to them to the last. We have the instance of
one race, at least, the Jews, and probably another, the
gipsies, to substantiate this supposition ; for both liave
kept themselves pretty much apart from mixture with
other races ; and we have no instance of an unmixed
race to prove to the contrary.

If we could brinof back to life a dozen Antjlo-Saxon
boys seven years of age, drowned or otherwise cut off in
health in the days of King Alfred; could we further send
them to a school in the most Anglo-Saxon county in
England ; if at the en«l of seven years or any longer
period Me.ssrs. Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall were sent
to examine them in mind and body, we have no rn'ounds
for supposing that this choice committee could distin-
guish them among their companions, through any marks
of change in the race during the thousand years which
separate the births of King Alfred's boys from the others.

Geological research aftbrds proof of the existence of
different human races many thousand years ago. li af-
fords proof that some human races have, in particular
regions, been supplanted by others. But it affords no
indication that one race has been chanijed into another.
The supplanted race was partly extirpated, partly
driven out of that region, but it was neither a chanued

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nor a lost typ<5 of hmnanity, for we fin«l its rcpresciit-
ativen living elsewhere at this day; and, on i'nrther
research, tliat higher type of man, into whieh the sup-
planted race Was supposed to havi* fieen improved, is
now proved to have been in existence thousands of
years l>efore tlie supplanting of the other race. The
geologist of the far future, when tlie North American
tribes shall have utterlv died out. on findini; the skelettin
of the red man in one stratum, and that of the white
ni;in in another stratinii overl\'ing the former, will not
make the blunder of inferiing that tlie red race had
been developed into the Teuton or tlie Celt.

x\ multitude of facts well known to us show that the
marks which di<tinL;uish human races are very «lurable;
and no facts known to us indicate that tliey may not l>e,
in liistorical experience, permanent. It is particularly
• lithcult to exclude, in such inquiiies, the effects ol" mix-
ture of Idood : but some facts indicate? that the offspring
from two verv different races of men tend stvonglv to <lie
out, from nn^ral as well as physical cau.ses.

It would seem Uy us, were we to hazard an opinion on
the matter, that it wouhl \w better that each country
shouM be occupied by people of one race, to the exclu-
sion of others, and that this race should V»e the one best
suited to the climate. Wherever a countiy is peopled
by one of the higher races, we would suppose it highly
injurious, and ultimately deteriorating to them, to intro-
duce an inferior race among them. But the existence of
different races in the same country occurs so oft^n, that
this would almost seem to be the order of nature. After

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these prt'liininary remarks wv will cuter more eloselv on
the subject on lumd.

' Tlie para<lise of veg;etation. a ricli soil with a liot cli-
mate, is tlie grave of human life.' It is certainly so to
the (.'aucasian race. Whenever detachments of this race
have penetrated into tropical, or even sul)-tro})ical re-
gions, as they often do, they have found themselves in
climates unfavourable to their health, and to the full
exercise of their native energies. Nowhere in the old or
new world, nearer to tl e Equator than latitude 'i."), can
any considerable population of the Caucasian race be
found, which can undergo field work and other oiit of
door labours, equal to those of the peasantry in Enghmd.
France, and Germany. Under such habitual exertions
and exposure they wouhl die out in a generation or two.
Jf there are any exceptions to this, which we doubt, they
will be found in mountain reuions, where hiiili elevation
counteracts low latitude, and on a poor soil, yieMing
little produce, and no malaiia from sununer heats. But
the (Caucasian, venturing into oi- near the tropics, has
generally found himself surrounded by a })oi)ulation of a
<litt*erent race from himself, with a physical constitution
far better adapted to the climate in which the two races
now meet. Yet under this disadvantage, he has seldom
failed so to use his superiority in intellect, knowledge,
and warlike (pialities, as not to avail himself of the har-
dihood and industry of the inferior races around him,
establishing in his new country a polity, of which he
made himself the head. If the subordinate population
was of a race given to provident industry, they became
•subjects merely ; but if constitutionally given to listless

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and improvident indolence, he made them liis slavo.s,
and supplied their want of provident and energetic will
from his own stock of both of these qualities.

The Spaniards, a branch of this Caucasian stock, were
the earliest European colonists in America. They, too,
were the most rapi«l conquerors there. The gold they
found in the hands of the natives of San Domingo and
Mexico excited their cupidity to the highest pitch.
Their greed after the precious metals soon exhausted
the su])ply which could be wrested from the con([uered
people. Then mining for that yet in the bowels of the
earth became the most engrossing pursuit of the colo-
nists. Tliia demanded irksome and exhausting labour,
fatal to the w^hites in this climate ; and that labour was
exacted from the natives, many of whom the conquerors
made their slaves.

The effects of this change in their condition was soon
seen in the island of San Domingo. The natives there
were a delicate people, and Las Casas, the noted Spanish
priest, was shocked on witnessing thedr sufferings. He
saw that they were dying out under the toils and priva-
tions imposed upon them by their conquerors who, turn-
inor miners and gold hunters, became the hardest of task-
masters. In fact no representative of this conquered
people has been living wuthin two centuries. Las Casas,
a man of rank and influence, returning to Spain, made
strenuous eflbrts at court for the relief of the Indians
from the slavery and toils which were exterminating
the race. The better to effect this^ he urged that negroes
should be sent out to relieve the Indians from the labours
HO fatal to them. Other priests in New Spain urged the

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same ineasuiT. Hut J^as Casas is sai<l to liavi' rc'«,Mt'tte(J,
lator in life, tlie j)art he took in tliis matter.

Modern philanthropists ridieule as well as den :)UiieL'
the blundering zeal of Las (.Visas in the eause of human-
ity. It could devise no better mode of relievini^ one op-
pressed race than the transfer of their burden to the
shoulders of another. But the views and conduct of this
►Spanish priest were not quite so absurd as they imaj^dne
them to be. He looke I U})on it not so much as an en-
slaving of the neirro, as a chanfjinj; (;f his master. He
may well have learned from the Portuguese settlements
on the coast of Africa, that the greater part of the ne-
groes were, perhaps always had been, slaves to men of
their own colour. He certainly knew that many of them
wei'e slaves among the Moors on the coast just opposite
to Spain. He even had opportuniti(!s of making himself
familiar with negroes and negro slaverv in the South of
Spain and Portugal. Both the race and their condition
were open to oljsei'vation. He saw the negro usually
cheerful, often noisily so, seemingly content in servitude
if not unusually harsh and exacting; readily admitting
the white man's superiority, and by no means broken
down by the condition in which he and most of his race
were born, lived, and died; and Las Casas may naturally
have contrasted the different effects of servitude on the
negro and on the Indian of San Domingo. But he lived
long enough to see that the labour of the negro would
fad to preserve the indian race.

The Spaniards introduced negro slaves into all their
American co onies, in w^hich they could make them use-
ful. The Portuguese followed, if indeed they had not
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sot this oxamplo in Brazil and elsewhere. A century or
so later the Englisli had founded colonies in Anieriea,
and entere<l zealously into the African slave trade under
the special license and patronage of the government.
Negro slaves were brought into and held in all tlie
lish colonies on the Atlantic coast, and this continued
long after these colonies became states.

The African slave ti'ade became a source of so much
protit to the English merchants and shi[)-o\vners, that
when so;r.e of the colonies Avished to limit it, on account
of the su[)po.sed danger in introducing such a crowd of
savages into new settlements, with another and hostile
i-ace of savages close on tlieir l)orders, the government in
Enuland overruled the objections of the colonial author-
ities, and kept the ports freely open to the importa " »n.
This trade was a source of great protit to some Ei h
cities, as Bristol and others. The commercial growth of
Liverpo(jl, we have heard, originated with it; and Glascow
shared in its gains.

But it was nowhere more zealously, profitably and
longer followed up than by the merchanis and ship-
owners of the New England ports. Even puritan di-
vines in New England, among them the famous Jon-
athan Edwards, are said to have embarked their money
in this trade. And Avhen at length in accordance with
an article, agreed upon by the States, and inserted in
the Constitution of the United States, the ports were
abouu to be closed to the African slave trade in 1808,
a great temporary impulse was given to the importa-
tion of negroes. Virginia had already closed her ports
to this trade. We ca:i only quote the following pub-

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lisliod stat ment from incniorv. Clarli stoii, Sontli
Carolina, bein^' the most c invenient jiort tlir()Ui;li wliich
could ])c supplied the L;re it dom md for negroes in
the newly settled ti nitories in tlu^ South-west; out of
more than two hundn-d slave-shii's that entered that port
in lS0G-7,far the great r numher, prohihly three-fourths,
hailed from Newport, Boston, Salem, and other New
England towns.

Negro slaves imported from Atiica, an 1 their ofi'spring
horn i;i America, c <ntinued to be soM, bought and htdd
in almost ever}- State that had l)eenone of those colonies.
But climate and th » phy ical (onstitution oF the negi-o
were yet to settle h's destination and hah'ih'f, when thus
t a sferred from Africa to anoth r i ontinent.

The Spaniards in their greedy search after gold tried
and failed to make useful slaves of the nativ'es of San
Dondngo. The Puritms of N'w England, besides import-
ing negroes from Afi'ica, added to their chattels by kid-
napping young Indians, and making slaves of them.
But ! hey found them not easily trained to 1 ibour, and
hard to keep, being much given to running away. We
have seen somewhere this doggerel dating, it is likely>
from tho:;e times:—

John IJrowii liaJ two little iudian boys.
One rfin away, and the other would not stay,
So John Brown lost his little Indian hoys.

But these speculations in young Indians usually en<led
more successfully in their being shipped to the West
Indies, to be made useful slaves of there, if that could
be done.

There are marked differences of character, and points

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of contrast bc!twe(3n the North American Indian and the
negro race. The indian, grave, somewhat silent, undemon-
strative in manner, and reserved in temper, shuns pro-
miscuous intercourse, is prone to a wild and free life; he
does not readily acknowledge another's superiority, and
pi;:ed and died out when reluced to servitude.

The noisy, chattering negro loves the excitement of
a crowd, is readily domesticated, if not easily civilized,
and thri es cand multiplies in subonlination to other and
higher races.

Tiie history of the negro in and oat of Africa leads to
these CO iclusions: — There never has originated among
an unmixed negro iH)pulation any condition of society
that approximated to civilization.

When civilization has been inti'oduced among them, it
is purely imitative, and they have not been able to retain
it when left to them el ve^.

Although the negro r.ice have shown a strong ten-
dency to gather around centres of population, there
never has existed a negro polity that rose above the
orjan'zation of a barbarous tribe.

No example can be f')und of a community of free
negro s exercising the ordinary providence and industry
common to most other races.

In the communities in Central Africa, which have
progressed so far as to maintain themselves by tilling
the soil, socii'ty is organized on the basis of master and
slave.

The negroes owe their possession of a large part of
middle and western Africa solely to the climate, which

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is generally and sp3eli!y fatal to people of most other
lac "S.

However much the negro may he changed and im-
proved in the Cv)iirse ( f some generations hy b.-ing trans-
ferred to another climate iind a, civilized (omnmnity, he
remains as obviously a negro in mind and body as his
ancestors were.

Free negroes living remote from the tropics die out
in a few gen rations. Negro slaves similarly situated
did not die out so fast.

To these reaiarks we will add that wherever the
climate is su h that the white man can perform all
necessary out-of-door labours without sacrificing his
health, thenegio rapilly and completely lo-es his value
as a labourer, as the country fills up with a new and
industrious population of a superior race. The va!ue of
thi' negro's labour, which it needs close superintendence
to get, falls from day to day, until it wiil not pay for
his maintenance. This was the result that put an rud to
negro slavery in the Northern States. Yankee traders
and ship owners were as busy as ever buying slaves on
the coast of Africa, and selling them in Southern and
West Indian ports. But there was another branch of
tlie same trade. Negro slaves being found to be a source
of little profit in the Nortli, the younger and more .sale-
able of those born and bred there were gradually sent
oft' to the South. It was not until they had gotten rid
of most of the marivetable part of this peculiar merchan-
dise, that the ];eople of the Northern States, one after
another, abolished slavery. Then they washed their
hands and purged their consi'iences of all participation

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THE tTNlTED STATES

in what tlioy now called an outrai^o aijainst the inalien'
able rin'lits of man.

But in the States lying further South the descendants
of the British colonists who had settled there found
themselves in a very different position from their Nortli-
ern confederates.

Theii" countrj^ was suh-tropical, an 1, except in and
near the mountains, wherever the soil was fertile, the
summer heat cnixendered malaria, noxious to the health,
often fatal to the lives of the whites, especially when
fatigued with labour, exhausted by fasting, or exposed to
tbe dews of night. The more fertile the soil, the more
fatal the climate to the whit" man ; while the negro
setsme 1 to defy its evil influences, labouring, thriving,
and multiplying in localities, where the whites, without
care in avoiding exposure, and in the c luice of the jilace
where they slept, ran great risk of dying out. Even in
the more 1)ari'en and therei'oi'e healthier parts of the
country, white labourers in the field, under the oppres"
sion of the long and hot summers, cannot work with
half the enr-rgy and persistence of the labourer in West--
ern Europe,

Thus the States that form the Federal IJnioi were
divided by geographical position, cliuiate, and pursuits,
into two distinct groups, differing in character from
each other. Moreover there had been from the first
settling of the Ci)untry some marked differences in the
character of the colonies. Ts'ew England had been
settled chiefly by malcontents againsu th'^ Eugii h gov-
erinnent and the Church of England. The same might
be said of some other colonies ; but both the English

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jL,'Overninent and chiircli had many zealous adherents
among the colonists in Virginia and tliose south of it.
But latterly the iDOst obvious distinction hetwcen the
South and the North was the presence in the former of
a large, orderly, and fast multiplying population of negro
slaves, contrasted with a sparce and rapidly decreasing
remnant of emancipated negroes in the latter. Few as
these free negroes were, they proved to be a great
nuisance, furnishing a monstrous proportion of tlie in-
mates of the gaols, poorhouses, hospitals, and hniatic
asylums, in the Northern States. The census, with the
reports on crime, pauperism, disease, and insanity, ex-
hibit these facts in the clearest light.

Another element was rapidly flowing into the country
to widen the ditierence between the Northern and
Southern States. Tlie climate of the former, although
one of extremes, is onj in which the Avhite man can
labour to some advantage, although not as well as in
that of the British Islands. Western Europe was over-
tiowinir with discontented labourers, and malcontents
who were not lab jurers; and multitudes came to America.
A large proportion of these new-comers to the land of
liberty, where many of them thought them.selves at
liberty to do whatever seemed good in their own eyes,
were of very undesirable characters. They came with
their heads stuffed full of false notions on political, econ-
omical, social, and moral questions of every kind, among
which was prominent a great contempt for vested rights.

The (jovernment received this crowd of emigrants with
open arms. The}' all, without distinction, at the end of
a few years, might become citizens and voters, without

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paying one penny of tax, an 1 take a part in the ruling
of a country, of the history, government, laws, and in-
stitutions of which most of them knew nothing, and
never could know, from utter ignorancj and incapacity
to learn.

But the people of the Northern Stages had powerful
motives for encouraging this iiiiniigration. Every man
who held land, or had any capital vested in some money-
seeking speculation, fe't that this influx of labour and
mechanical skill was adding to Ids own wealth, and his
hopes of vastly increasing it. Moreover, every addition
to the popula ion of the Northern States, by swelling
the number of their representatives in t!ie Congress of the
United States, added to their control over the Federal
government. This was the great object on which the
people of the Northern States ha<l set theh* hearts. They
gained not only powei- but money by it.

At the first formation of the Federal Union, not only
were the Northern States more in number than the
S >uthern, but the people were more numerous. And,
rapid as was the increase of populatio i in tlie South,
it was more rapid in the North, being continually
swollen by the influx of em ig ants from Europe, rivalling
in numbers the migrating hordes that overran provinces
of the Roman empire. We have few means of reference
at hand, but in sjme years, as in lSo4f, this immigiation
amounted to nearly half a mi lion.

At the sauie time the prosperity of the No th was
stimulated by the influx of a vast amount of capital
borrowed in En^fland and elsewhere. Is it destined to
be repaid ? Caveat creditor. Both labour and capital

UNMASKED.

sought in the New World the latitudes, climate, and
investments, most similar t ) those of the country from
which it had come. Of the foreiimers livincr in the
United States in 1^550, two millions were in the North,
and not one quarter of a million in the South. The tide
of emigration had not yet reached its height, and this
(lisj)roportion afterwards increased. The North thus ac-
([uired an almost unlimited command of capital and
labour, including in the latter skilled mechanics and men
of hiijh scientitic attainments. All its Lrreat w<jrks of
internal improvements are chiefly the result of borrowed
foreign capital, Irish and German labour, and mechanical
skill from England, Scotland, and the North of Europe.

This was the prosperous condition of the Northern
States in 18G0. What was then the condition of the
Southern States ?

Before we enter into that inquiry we will observe
that there never was any great cordiality between
the two parts of the Union. But the road to prosperity
which lay open before them, kept them too profitably
busy to afford time for deadly quarrels between them ;
and they occasionally experienced pressure enough,
from foreign enemies, to keep them together.

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CHAPTER V.

The Southern States.

It is impossible to explain the present condition of tht*
United States, without giving a sketch of the progresM
of the Southern States down to 1860.

If we were to represent them as pictured at and for
some time previous to that date, by very many of the
Northern people, and by the leading journals published in
the Northern cities, from which journals the world at large
chiefly derived its notions of the slave-holding states of the
Union, the Whole South would seem to have been one
pandemonium. Never were any people so elaborately
vituperated and denounced as they were by an annually
swelling crowd of their Northern confederates. It is
true that there were at the North numbers who set their
faces against this hostility in words and in acts against
the people of the Southern States. But being gradually
over-ridden by popular clamour and violence; they lost
influence day by day, and finally shrunk into a small
minority who were, and still are, compelled to keep
their convictions to themselves. During the war that
followed, free speech, censuring the course of the govern-
ment, was answered by mob-law, or by locking up the
speaker in Fort LaFayette, or some other Bastile.

For years the mildest expression of Northern opinion
had taught that the people of the Southern States were
indolent, unenterprising, and averse to steady labour of

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any kind; the only energy they showe.l was in driving
their slaves. The self-sufficient New Englander had
long harped upon this theme, while offering himself as
an example for imitation in the opposite qualities.
According to him the North under New England's
guidance and inspiration, had done everything, and the
South nothing, to develop the resources of the country.
He laid it down as an infallible dogma, that negro
slavery in the South had deteriorated the character and
habits of the people, was an obstacle to the progress of
population and civilization, and the improvement of the
country; that all slive labour was unskillful, slovenly,
and superficial, obstructing the use of machinery and
improved methods of culture, and making labour dis-
creditable in the white man. It stamped inc(jmpleteness
and inefficiency on all that was done or attempted. The
New Englander had preached this doctrine so confident-
ly and zealously as not only to convince himself, but
some people even in the South almost began to believe
it. Yet the true history of the Southern States flatly
contradicted these assertions.

A little more than two centuries before 18G0, the
whole teriitory of the Southern States, except the neigh-
borhood of Jamestown in Virginia, of the Spanish forts
of St Augustine and Pensacola, and two French posts on
the Mississippi, was a wilderness, the hunting ground of
the red man. Another century wrought but very par-
tial changes in this Viist region, although several
European colonies were then flourishing on the coast.

What progress had the South made in the next

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hundred years ? And liow far can the people of the
South claim that progress as their own work?

More than a century ago the tide of European immigm-
tion into North America had been much diverted from
the Southern State >. The climate deterred lal>ourinii;
men from going thither; and the few Europeans and
Northern men who settled there seldom brought families
with them, A great majority of the p**ople of the South
sprang from ancestoi-s who had S'ittltfd in some of the
Southern colonies several ifcnerations back.

As to the oft asserted deterioration of the white pop-
ulation of the Southern States, and that this dfteriora-
tion was partially counter-acted by the influx of new-
comers from Europe and the North, a multitude of
statistical and historical facts utterly disprove these as-
sertions. We will briefly refer to the statistics: —

It appears from the U. S. census of 1850, that nearly
nine- tenths of the foreign born population in the coun-
try were found in the Northern States, and little more
than one-tenth in the Southem States.

It appears from the same census, that while only one
hundred and ninety five thousand (195,000) persons,
born in the Northern States, were livin;.' in the South —
four hundred and eighty five thousand !'485,000) nat ves
of the Southern States were then living in the North.
Eighty five thousand Virginians were found in Ohio
alone. Fifty-one thousand in Indiana. Sixty-eight
thousand Kentuckians in Indiana. Fifty-nine thousand
ii. Illinois. Fifty-eight thousand North Carolinians in
Ohio. Thirty thousand in Indiana. Thirt3''-two thou-
sand Tennes£2ans in Illinois — ikc. We need not lengthen

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out tVls statement. The Soutlierners who liad settled
in tlie North were twice and a half more numerous than
the Northern men who had settled in the South.

Isilto be supposed that these Southern men w^ould have
gone and settled themselves in the Northern states, if,
from inferiority in ability and industry, they found
themselves less capable of making a living and pushing
their fortunes than the people they went amcmg? Far
the greater part of these etnigrants from the South were
labouring farmers, and their object was to find a climate
in w'hich field work and out of door labour is not so in-
jurious to the w^hite man as in that which thev had left
behind them. It is prove<l, by successive returns of the
census — that the w^hite population of the Southern States
was multiplying rapidl}^ although the emigration much
exceeded the immigration both from Europe and the
Northern States.

As to the asserted deterioration of the people of the
Southern States, notorious historical facts prove its
falsehood. Although the whites in the South were much
fewer that those in the North, in fact not half as numer-
ous, yet the people of the United States selected most of
their Presidents from the South — down to 1800. The
Chief Justices of the Suprome Court of the United
States, with, we believe, only one exception, were born
and died in slave-holding states. The two men pre-em-
inently distinguished in the annals of Congress by their
parliamentary abilities, w^ere Henry Clay, a leader who
seemed to take possession of men's hearts and heads —
and John C. Calhoun, the logical statesman, who best ex-
pounded the principle and duties of the government —

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both were bom in, and represented slave holding states.
So with the soldiers who have a name in history — Wash-
ington and Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Joseph E. John-
ston, whose campaigns were master pieces of Fabian
strategy. To these we may add the names of that coarse,
strong willed man, Andrew Jackson, who ruled all that
came in contact with him, and General Scott, and Z.
Taylor, so successful in the war against Mexico, All
these were born and bred in the South. No equivalent
to this array of worthies sprang from the Northern
States.

But some Yankee panegyrist may say that General
Grant's services alone far surpass the achievements of all
the soldiers we have named. And this tempts us to say
a few words in explanation of General Grant's military
career.

We know little of the earlier part of that career. He
was educated at West Point, and held a commission in
the army for several years, but had to leave it for causes,
of which intemperance was the chief. He was after-
wards engaged in some manufacturing or commercial en-
terprises, but failed in them. 18C0 found him a broken
man, of dissipated habits and desperate fortunes. ■ But
he was known to be a man of great resolution. It has
been said that he oft'ered his services to the Confederates ;
but this may be false. The same thing has been assert-
ed as to another noted Northern General of better char-
acter than Grant. He was, we believe, first employed
by the U. S. government in crushing a movement of the
secessionists near St. Louis in Missouri, where they were
greatly in the minority — and afterwards attracted atten-

UNMASKED.

tion by his success in subordinate positions. But his
good fortune sprang from a peculiar conjunction of
events. The Northern government and j'eople began
their efforts to put down the 'rebellion' as they called it,
with inadequate forces. Every time they made a failure,
they changed their general, and greatly increased their
levies. Luckily for Grant it was not until a number of
commanders in chief had been shelved — and the insufti-
ent strength of successive armies had been acknowledged,
that the government put forth all its remaining strength
and credit, raised an army of a million of men, more
than half of whom were foreigners — and put Grant in
command. He certainly succeeded at last in performing
the task entrusted to him. Butwedonot justnowremem-
ber, in all history, any successful general who had so many
of his men slaughtered by an enemy greatly inferior in
numbers. But he had been furnished with plenty of
men and plenty of ammunition, and seems to have valued
the one about as much as the other. We are not well
informed as to the details of his campaigns. But we
know of no one instance in which he displayed stategetic
ability of a high order — and would be surprised if SLuy
military critic could point it out. Wielding an over-
whelming force against enemies very inferior in num-
bers, he showed the most dogged resolution, and dis-
regard for the lives of his men; and failure at one point
only stimulated him to try his luck at another. This
explains his more than semi-circular campaign around
Richmond in 18C4 — 5. One feature in General Grant's
success has been little commented on, for the steps that
led to it are wrapped in obscurity. It is known that he

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went into tho war (Icsperatc.ly poor, but seem.s to have
come out very rich. But the process lias never been ex-
plained by which he accjuired his wealth.

We do not ni< .m to attribute any unusual purity of
morals, or elevation of sentiment, to the average South-
ern man. He had little claim to it. But there was
something in the polit cal and social orf^^anization of the
Southern States, especially the older States, that enal)l(;d
men who were not mere cunning and unscrupulous poli-
ticians, but men of high character and social position, to
take p linent places in public life. It was evident that
the leading men of the South long exercised a wholesome,
elevating, and conservative influence, both politically
and socially, over the whole Union. The acknowledge-
ment of this was not unusual in the North, and some-
times came from very curious ([uartei'S.

No man matle himself more conspicuous by incessant
and unmeasured abuse of the South than Horace Gree-
ley, the editor of the New York Tribune. It was meat^
and drink to him, literally and metaphorically. It
supported his paper, and that supported him. One of
his bitterest complaints against the South, and many
others echoed it, was that Southern men dominated both
socially and politically over their Northern associates.
The same a<imission was freely and fully made by Elihu
Burrett, 'the learned blacksmith,' a widely known ^'
England author, a man of greater attainv «<«
Greeley, but like him, of no large mental ore.

The truth was that in the South, constat icncies of
white men, with a negro population politically ber ath
them, were less influenced by the motives and impulses.

UNMASK KI).

which, in elections, control the luoh of voters in the
Northern States. And, whatever may have heen the
ol)jects which led a Southern man into jmhlic lif<',
politics was seldom adopted as a profession, or trade, by
which he hoped to make his fortune. Pecuniary em-
i»arrassnient was there the usual result of political am-
i)ition. Wliat perhaps most intiuenced the selection and
fornuMl the characters of the public men of the South
was the position they long occupied as the defenders of
law, vested rights, and constitutional limitations, and
as the opposers of extiavagance and corruption in gov-
ernment, and of the attacks of a radical and usurping
democracy.

Having >uid so much of the whites, the real people of
the South, we will now speak of the negroes there. Far
the greater part of tlie negroes were the descendants
of Africans brought into the country before the revolu-
tion of 1770. It was not late in the history of the
Southern colonies when the slave population increased
more by births than by importation.

In this respect the English continental colonies differed
from the colonies in the West Indies, whether English,
French, or Spanish. In these latter, for reasons un-
known to us, possibly from the cost of maintaining the
families of the negroes, only adult male slaves were
much in demand. Cargoes of Africans consisted chiefly
of men, as those of Coolies at the present day. But,
among the negroes brought into the English continental
colonies, there were almost as many women as men.
Indeed, we have been told that it was not uncommon
foi he slaver, after selling off most of the adult males
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in the West Indies, to bring the remainder left on his
hands, chiefly women and children, to some port on the
continent. Thus the negroes, on a plantation or estate
in the West Indies, resembled a regiment in this respect,
that the ranks were kept full by the introduction of
recruits. But the importation of negroes into the con-
tinental colonies was like bringing in a body of peasant-
ly for the permanent settlement of the country. The
result Avas that, although far fewer Africans were brought
to the English part of the continent ihan to any
one of the larger West Indian islands, yet their descend-
ants are twice as numerous as all the negroes in the
West Indies.

We have access to very few sources of early statistics,
and the census of the United States dates only from
1790. But it appears from the census that the rate of
increase of the negroes was little higher during the last
eighteen years of the slave trade, than after the ports
were closed against it. From this we infer that no great
number of Africans were brought into the country be-
tween 1790 and 1808, when the trade ceased. It is
probable that the whole number of Africans brought
to the English part of the continent from the opening of
the slave trade to the close of it, fell short of three hun-
dred thousauvl ; yet their ofi'spring in 18G0, were more
than four million four hundred thousand.

We would not infer from the mere increase of popu-
lation, the absolute well being of a people. A well
known modern instance would contradict that assump-
tion. But this nipid increase of the negroes in the
Southern States is a remarkable fact, and indicates very

ii«i'

UNMASKED.

strongly that their condition was not unadapted to their
nature. It clearly proves that the oft-pictured cruelties
of the masters and sufferings of the slaves, even when
founded on truth, must have represented exceptional cases.

After 1808 no Africans were introduced into the
country. According to the census of 1810 the number
of slaves in the United States was one million, one hun-
dred and ninety-one thousand (1,191,000). Fifty years
later, in 18G0, they had increased to tliree million nine
hundred and fifty-three thousand (3,953,000). If we
deduct the immigrants that annually swelled the white
population, it will he found the negro slaves multiplied
about as fast as the whites, fully 27 or 28 per cent, every
ten years ; while, as is well known, the free negroes de-
clined in numbers, especially at the North, although k^pt
up by additions from the slave population, either as
fugitives or set fi'ee by their masters.

It is a very significant fact that according to the
census of 1870, the whole number of coloured people in
the United States fell short, by half a million, of the
number they should have reached, had the negroes con-
tinued to increase from 18G0 to 1870 at the lowest rate
recorded in any previous period of ten years. — Did the
negroes continue to multiply, as usual, from 18G0 until
their emancipation in 18G5, and then their increase
abruptly cease ? That supposition would exactly ex-
plain the returns to the census of 1870. Perhaps it is
too soon to draw certain inferences as to the increase or
decrease of the negro population. But from some facts
known to us, among which are

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that the neLjroos are now rapidly decreasing in numbers
in the South.

In 1810 tlie Southern States, besides supplying all the
wants of their people in the shape of fo.)d, produced foi-
exportation crops to the value of thirty-two millions of
dollars. Fifty years later, in 1800, still supplying all
the food their people needed, they produced for (exporta-
tion crops to the v^ilue of three hundred and thirty
millions of dollars; and that under a tariif and fiscal
policy which designedly and successfully beat down
the price of their produce. If we omit the bordei'
Southern States, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri,
which furnished very little of this produce for exporta-
tion, this was the surplus crop of the Southern States,
with a population of three million two hundred thousand
(J], 200,000) whites, and three million six hundred thou-
sand (0,000,000) negioes, after agricultural labour had
supplied the necessaries of life to their people. The cot-
ton crop made up nearly three-fourths of this amount
in value.

We believe agricultur ;1 histoij affords no instance of
so rapid an increase in the amount of any crop, as that
of the cotton crop in the Southe n States. They seemed
destined to clothe the world, and to do it clieaply. 'J'he
])roduction was increasing at the rate of sixty oi- seven-
ty per cent, eveiy ten years ; far faster than either the
white or the negro population. If nothing had inter-
rupted the progress of this culture, by this tiiue (1878)
the cotton crop of tiie Southern States would have
risen to eleven or twelve millions of bales, ecpial, at the
moderate price of twelve cents per ]>()und to five liun
dred and iifty or six hundred millions of d(d!nis.

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UN MASK KD.

Much fault lias Vj -en found with the slovenly faimin«^^
of the South, owing to the euiploynient of slave labour.
The truth is that abundance of land and scarcity of
labour causes rouf,di but broad cultivation ; while abun-
dance of labour and scarcity of land leads to neat and
thoroui:rli tillaije. In the South much of that limited
breadth of land, peculiar in soil and situation, adapting
it to the production of the su<^ar-cane, or rice, or the
long-stapled sea-island cotton, exhibited neat, skilful
and thorough culture, by slave labour.

The civilixation, systematic industry, and controlling
intelligence of the white race, directing and aided by
the ability to labour and the constitutional peculiarities
of the negjo, in a country Ltnd climate so capable of
valuable productions, had made the Southern States
rich, civilize<l, and prosperous communities ; whose an-
nually increasing produce took the lead in the commerce
of the world, and sustained in peace and plenty two
distinct populations, each of which already numbered
several millions, and were multiplying with great
rapidity. We suppose that it is intended that the im-
provable portions of the earth's surface should be brought
under cultivation by man ; and we do not know any
other combination of human capabilities an<l relations,
which could have raised thef-e regions, so peculiar in
character and climate, to the condition they had
attained to in IHGO.

We know nothing in the history of the negro race
fiom which we can infer that there ever was, or in-
dt.'ed, ever will be anywhere, ;i numerous negro popula-
tion in as good physical and moral condition, and as fit

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to form a part, although a subordinate part, of a civilized
community, as the four millions of negro slaves in the
Southern States in 1860. They had, as a body, attained
to a higher degree of culture in morals, habits, and reli-
gion, than the race had ever known, and this V)y the
imitation of their masters ; for the negi-o is eminently an
imitative being. But as soon as the relation of servitude
and its habitual intercourse ceased, that tendency to
imitate the better lessons to be learned from the whites
faded rapidly. For the impressions made upon the
negro are of singularly brief duration. From this con-
stitutional defect, the negro, perhaps more than any
other race, needs a government close to him, and super-
intending him. With no more forethought and pro-
vidence than children, they need to be controlled and
directed like children, and tlie effect of the ^^overnment
close to them was seen in the Southern States. Al-
though much given to petty delinquencies, no where
was there less of serit)us crime than among the four
millions of slaves in the South. But now, we believe,
few who have seen much of the negroes there within
the last ten years, will dei.\y that the bulk of them are
receding from civilization. In the declining influence of
religion, and often in its utter perversion, in the loss of
industry and oi-derly habits, and in their disregard of
family ties, the major | art of them are drawing near to
Jamaica and Hayti, on t' ur w ay to Guinea and Congo.
We do not assume that any considerable portion of
the white people in the South had attained to high moral
and intellectual culture. We know that with the bulk
of the people in any country, and of any race, religion,

V-*

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moral culture, and civilization are but skin-deep. Both
reason and revelation tell us that. Moreover in a new
and almost exclusively agricultural country high intel-
lectual and moral culture is not readily disseminated.
But there was in the South a cultivated class, perhaps
not inferior in essential qualities to the best class in any
country, and their number and influence was extending
rapidly westward tlirough the South. Indeed we know
of no country wnatever, in which real progress and im-
provement were making as rapid strides as in these
Southern States.

This assertion must sound strangely in the ears of
those who have been taught that 'slave-holding is the
sum of all villainies,' and utterly incompatible with
the profession of Christianity.

We ourselves may believe that Christianity tends to
abolish slavery. But how does this tendency work?
Merely as it tends to raise and perfect humanity. It tends
to render needless the servitude of any class of men.
Christianity tends also to abolish the poor-house, the
gaol, and the gallows — by rendering each of them less
needed. But we are sure that all that Christianity will
ever effect, on earth, will be to diminish the need for
them.

The very numerous l)ody of professed Christians in
the Southern States were quite unaware that there was
less of earnestness and sincerity in their faith and prac-
tice, than there was among tUeir professing Northern
neighbours. Christians in the South, although divided as
elsewhere, between several churches and sects, were
characterized by a general sobriety in their convictions,

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and were less apt to bo led oft* into the many extrava-
gant r.sm.s' pervading the North. The profanities and
l>estialities of Morinonisni, and other religious monstros-
ities, did not originate, and never spread into the South,
Although the clergy in the South were intensely zealous
for the defense of the rights of the>e States against
Northern aggression, yet luar sermons, substituting
politics for religion, were not preached by them.
They left that to the Northern pulpits. Patriotic
songs did not take the place of devotional hymns
in Southern churches, as the 'Star spangled banner'
and other political rhajDsodies, did in the North.
Nor was the altar, with the consecrated bread
and wine of the Christian Eucharist, draped in South-
ern churches with the Confederate banner, as it was with
the United States ftas:, in New York and elsewhere at
the North.

The Christian clergy of the South had the Bible, the
word of God ; and, with tlie exce[)tion of the Roniau
Catholics, professed to make it the exclusive ground of
all their teaching. But they failed to find in it any
texts enjoining the emancipation of the negroes. On
what ground rests the assertion that Christianity pro-
hibits the holding of slaves? Christ, during his stay on
earth, his apostles, during their whole lives, lived in
slave-holding countries; they were in habitual contact
with masters and slaves. Yet they never once came in
conflict with slavery.

Let it not be forgotten that tlie slaves of the Roman,
of the Greek, of the Syrian, and the Jew, were people of
far higher races than the negro. Christian doctrine has

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UNMASKED

^•^

any

its mysteries, the meaning of which may be disputed and
misunderstood; but its moral teaching is very plain
spoken. Yet not only did 'tJiat sin of sins' 'that sum of
(ill iniquities' escape censure, but the Christian scrip-
tures distinctly inculcate the relative duties of mastei"S
and of slaves. Saint Paul in his inculcation of practical
Christian morals is full and precise in his teaching-. In
his long catalogues of sin-i, and of sinneis, he evidently
means to comprehend all the shapes taken ly man's in-
iquity. How came he to forget to put .slave-holding
and the slave-holder amonfj the sins and the sinners!*
So obvious is this omission, this defect in Christian
Scriptures, that many of the most uncompro: rising
apostles of human, and especially negro free<]om, turned
in ilisgust and contempt from the Bible, and appealed to
a higher law.

Many, I should say most Christian men and ministers
in the South believed that the negro's religious faith and
practice weie far more aided than hindered by his sub-
ordinate and even servil-.' condition. And it is very far
from being yet proveci that they were in error.

It is often said that the possession of power over others
cultivates selfishness and tyranny in the possessor of that
power. It do'ubtless has that tendency. A common
application and illu.-^tration of this remark is the con-
duct of the masters of slaves. Doubtless they afforded
many a case in point. The possession of power over
others, in any shape, is apt to generate tyranny. But
far from being the only, it is not the usual and natural
effect of it. The natural and usual effect of the posses-
sion of power over others is to awaken the sense of res-
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ponsibility on their account. Withoiit this, the rela"
tions of the family, of society, and of government could
not exist; for they all rest upon it.

In the case of the employers of labour, especially
when that employment is somewhat permanent, as in
the case of land-holders, thrown into frequent, often
habitual intercourse with those who live on their lands^
every observant man must have seen that the usual
effect of this relation is to fjenerate the habit of consid-
ering the necessities and interests of those thus connect-
ed with, and, to some extent, dependent upon them; and
this leads to the habit of acting for their benefit. This
relation tends to take a man out of himself, counteract-
ing the selfish instincts of our nature, which we oftenest
see aggravated into the most unscrupulous selfishness
among those who are occupied exclusively in buying and
selling, and other pursuits, which bnng men into only
casual contact with persons little or not at all known to
them.

As the land holder naturally takes an interest in his
tenants and work people, so the Southern planter had a
more permanent interest, and frequent intercourse with
his negroes; and his relations to them necessarily
assumed a somewhat patriarchal character, which coun-
teracted that natural and almost universal antipathy
springing from difference of race. His thoughts and his
care were directed, not merely to the profits derived
from their services, but beyond that, to providing for
their wants and well being. The interest he felt in them
assumed the form of duty, and went beyond that of the
employer towards his hired workmen.

UNMASKED.

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e usual
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and his

derived
ding for

in them
it of the

Among the many thousands of masters of slaves in
the South, doubtless there must have been not a few
shocking instances of tyranny and brutality. We can
find plenty of such instances elsewhere. But the phy-
sical condition of the negroes, the rapid increase of their
numbers, the rareness of the occasions on which they
were prosecuted for serious crimes, and their quiet
acquiescence in their condition during a four years' war
of such a peculiar character — all indicate that law,
custom, and the feelings of their masters generally se-
cured to them treatment by no means adverse to their
welfare.

The people of the Southern States did not hold them-
selves more responsible than the rest of their race for
the presence of the African among then:. If their
fathers had bought the negroes as slaves, it was the
people of England and of the North who had brought
them there, and sold them as slaves; and doubtless the
proceeds of the price then paid is still to be found in
England and the Northern States.

There were in the South some people, perhaps a good
many, who would have preferred that the negroes should
never have been brouorht there. The result would have
been that, with only white labour to rely on, the larger
and especially the more fertile portions of the South
would have been a pastoral rather than a farming
country; and it would not have made one-fourth the
progress in wealth and civilization that it had already
made. But the country would have enjoyed the advan-
vantage of being free from the j)resence of this inferior
race.

But the negroes were there, and that being the case,

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nobody in tlie South doubted as to what was theii'
proper position. The country, climate, and their con-
dition as slaves, had proved so suitable to their nature,
that two or three hundred thousand Africans, in a period
of much less than a century and a half (takint,' the
average time of their arrival) were represented by four
million and a half of descendants. To the out of door
labours of the negroes was due not merely the crude
agricultural productions of the soil, but they furnished
the occasion and the means for the less exposed but
more skilful labours and occupaMon.'^, in the same
country, of a more numerous population of whites.

The people of the South knew that the welfare, wealth,
and civilization of their country, and the preservation
of social order in it, rested on tlie servile condition of
the negroes. The history of their race proved that to
emancipate them w^as to abolish reliable industry
among the only race which, in that climate, could effect-
ually cultivate the soil ; to enfranchise them as citizens
would throw office and power into the hands of the
lowest and most unprinc pled demagogues, who would
soon get the control of the votes of the mass of ignor-
ance and incapacity in the guise of negro citizens ; and
then use their official positions thus acquired, for every
corrupt and fraudulent purpose. Nobody now can doubt,
after the revelations made and being madsj- tliat the
numerous body of Northern adventurers and Southern
turn-coats, who, encouraued and backed by the Northern
government, controlled the votes of the negroes by
intrigue and bribery, were simply thieves, endowed
with more skill and cunning than the common thief.

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UNMASKED.

Tliey aimed at pocketing millions of })lnn{ler, and bein^
backed by the authority and military force of tlie gov-
ernment, were remarkabl}' successful, until the country
becar.e exhausted of sioiN.

The people of the Southern States knew that they
had a civilization worth preserving, and that it was
based upon the existing relations of the white and black
races. They knew that no foreigner outside of the
jurisdiction of their own State i;overnnients had a rijjht
to intei'fere in their internal political and social organi-
zation, and least of all the people of the Northern States.
For they had induced the Southern States to join in the
treaty that formed the Union by allowing to each slave-
holding State additional representation in Congress for
three-fifths of its slaves ; and also by each State pledg-
ing itself to deliver up any fugitive from another State
legally held to service there.

Where two very different races meet in the same
country, they are from nature and necessity antagonistic.
They do not commingle, or at least very partially, and
with no satisfactory results, for the offs])ring is apt to
be wanting in the better qualities of both races. The
inferior race either dies out, or becomes subject to the
other. When the latter result occurs, the further sub-
jection of individuals of the one race to individuals of
the other tends to mitigate the effects of the antaixonism
of races. It provides each one of the subject race with
an individual guardian who has the interest, desire, and
power to protect him. He is no longer a masterless
slave amid a crowd of masters, carini:: nothing for him
while tyrannizing over him. We need not go far for

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examples to prove that when a barbarous race is not
enslaved, it is, sooner or later, exterminated. The Yan-
kees, lon<( af,'o, gave up the attempt to make slaves of
the North American Indians. Since then they have
been busy exterminatin*^ them. The English, not so
long ago, gave up enslaving the natives ol' middle
Africa. Since then they have been dispossessing the
pastoral tribes of South Africa of their meagre pastures.
For the well tended herds of the Caftres stood in the
way of the cattle of the English colonists, and must be
driven off. When the Caffres and others resist this
confiscation and expatriation they extirpate them. But
to compensate them for the loss of their thirsty and
sterile lands, the English missionaries strive to lead them
to the green pastures and waters of comfort in Paradise.

We do not believe that any one, who has not lived in
a country where a large portion of the population are
negroes, has the means of forming a sound opinion
on negro slavery. He would be still better able to
judge, on knowing them in both servitude and freedom.
Until he has this experience it is pure presumption in
him to undertake to decide this question. We are con-
vinced that the emancipation of the negroes in the
Southern States tends rapidly to diminish their numbers
and revive their barbarism. And from the nature of the
climate, the room left vacant by their shrinking numbers
can be but sparsely filled by another race, unless a flood
of Chinese migrate thither.

Yet some thirty years ago the world hailed as gospel
truth on negro slavery that world-read book, " Uncle
Tom's Cabin." It now turns out that the authoress,

UNMASKED.

whon she wrote it, had never ))een in a slave-lioMin^'
State, and had never seen a slave except as a fn<,ntive
from servitude. She seemed to suppose that tlie four
millions of slaves in the South, unlike all other popula-
tions, did not embrace a criminal class. We do not
mean to say that all, or half, or a third, of the fugitive
slaves, who weitj never numerous, belonged to that class.
After the war and the emancipation, the authoress of
this book went to Florida and lived there some time ;
and, then admitted, that she found the real negroes very
different from those she had painted. But we attribute
little value to the opinion and testimony of a witness
who, after Lady Byron's death, announces to the world
that the most reticent woman in all England had told
to her, a stranger and a foreigner, a most scandalous
secret, which she had most guardedly suppressed during
a long life, the truth of which was disbelieved and denied
by her legal advisers in matters akin to it, and which
was unsuspected by the scandal-seeking world, until the
inventive novelist coined it into money by publishing it.
The former prosperity and now fallen state of the
South concerns us here only so far as it serves to explain
the present condition of the whole Union.

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CHAPTER VI.

The QiAise of the Secession of The Soutliern States.

Governiiieiit- is a C(ms('rvcativ(3 iiistitv.tioii. Tlic pur-
pose for which it exists is to preserve, not to revolution-
ize, or destroy. We dwell upon this truism — hecause
many people seem to have lost sight of the truth in it,

The Southern States in sec(!ding ficm the Union were
resistin<^, not makinLj a revolution. The Northern
State;, and the Federal <^^overnment umler tiieir control,
under the pretences of preserving- the Union, were
making a revolution, destroying one government legally
established, and putting in its place a disguised repre-
sentation of it, hut which was r.ally a usurping tyranny.

When the thirteen colonies declared tlu'mselves fre;
and indepen<lent States, breaking off* their connection
with (Ireat Britain, they did so on the claim that, on the
principles of English constitutional liberty, each co ony
had the exclusive right to tax itself, and t!ie Ihitish
parliame:it, in which they were not represented, had no
right to tax them. They ma<le great use of this argu-
ment; yet it was, as t]iey used it, of little value as a
principle in government, for it expnissed but half the
truth in it, suppressing the more valuabli! half, and
making it substantially a falsehood. Unless the tax-
payers., who furnish the means necessary to the sup})ort
<^f government, can say how much is necessary for its
support; unless they liave the power to limit taxation,

THK UNITED STATES UNMASKED.

thoy have no security for tlieir ri^dits. An<l tlu; best
s(!Ciirity th iy can have is to liold the power of taxation
exclusively in their liands. If tlie pov/er to tax is to lie
j)ut into othci' hands than theirs, it is be^.ter that tliis ini-
poser of taxes slioiild be one autocr.it than the multitude.
The demands ol" the one may be satisfied, those of the
Imni^ry, j^reedy multitude can not. Tiie one man im-
posing taxes can be controlled, the millions, imposing
taxes, cannot be controlled.

The colonies, on renouncin*^ their allefjiance to the
King, })ecaun! republics, but they did n >t create republics.
Take fiom the colonial governments, under whicli tliey
liad been long living, the; royal prerogatives, and ipso
fdcto ^hey weie republics. But they were not democra-
cies, xii the iuodern sense of the word. We believe (l»at
there was not one of the thirteen states, in which tht;
franchise, the right to a voice in legislation, or in the
choice Ol d'degates to the legislative assendjly, was not
base<l on the possession of freeliold property, or some
equivalent stake in the country. And alth<..igh the
money valu .• of this necessary (jualification may have
been small, still the State government r. -presented and
was controlled by those who furnished the means for its
support — that is the tax-payers. The administration of
a government founded on this basis, may prove inefficient
or corrupt; but as long as the ultimate autliority of
government rests on this foundation, the control of it is
in the hands of the class who are mo ^t able to reform
abuses. This accounts for the economy and ht^nesty
which for a long time marked the expenditures and the
administration of those state governments.

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But high wages and the low price of land in a new
country, especially in the new settlements, wh<'re almost
every one became a landholder, and to some small
amoimt a tax pay*'r, obscured the permanent importance
of this provision as to the f lanchise. The extreme doc-
trines as to the equality of men, and the inferences
from it, set afloat and disseminated every where by
the Frencli Revolution, and especially among the crowd
of emigrants from Europe, to whom the Fedei'al govern-
ment accor.Jed a spc^edy naturalization; and the eager-
ness and perseverance with which demagogues seized
and dwelt upon a topic so acceptable to the multitude,
exercised so powerful an influence, that in forty or fifty
years every restriction on the franchise was swept away
in every State, Virginia and Rhode Island being the
latest; and the right to vote was conceded to every
white man, born or naturalized in the countrv, and
twenty-one yeai's of age, who was not a pauper depen-
dent upon public charity. The States were now confed-
erated democracies. The Government of the United
States was fast becoming what it had not been, and
what was never intei7ded, one huge democracy.

Theoretical statesmen had indeed hedged in this wild,
ignorant, greedy democracy with certain paper barriers,
called Bills of Rights and Constitutions. But the Magna
Charta of democracy is expressed in few and simple
words: The Sovereign Majority have all rights, and the
minority no rights in opposition to its will.

In a new country, with land abundant and cheap, and
labour highly paid, the people prosperous and progres-
sive, that portion of the population oppressed by and

UNMASKED.

lebcllini' airaiiist the narrowness of their condition, and
the natural obstructions to their pr(jgr ss in providing
for th. ir own wi;ll-being, will be unusually small. — And
in coiisequence ihat class which seeks to live by preying
on society will not be numerous. A government of the
most j.opular form may sit lightiy on the country, and
yet secure a reasonabl.' amount of justice and order. But
this cannot last long.

In the Unite<l States the whole co uitry was becoming
year by year more democratic, politically but not socially,
especially in the Northerii States. In the South the
presence of a negro population in servitude iuodihed the
democratic intiuences of the government. But now the

Ider portio.is of th ; confederacy were fast losing the
leculiar advantages of a new country. The papulation,
multiplying rapidly, was still further swollen by the
great tide of emigrants from Europe ; and in general
they were tho;e whom the country could best spare.
The growth of 'arge cities and the density of population
around the connnercial and manufactuiin<; centres in
the Northern States, brought with them all those
struggles for employment and subsistence, all those con-
trasts of condition between the very rich and very poor,
between the luxurious and the destitute, all the discon-
tent and heart-burnings, all the corruption and vice of
the oldest capitals in Europe; and this in the heart of the
most democratic of governments.

The policy of protection for American industry had
artificially built up an inunensc manufacturing system

with its crowds of operatives dependent on its success.

The rival policy of raising a great revenue for the gov-

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crninont, to bo oxptrnded among the people of the North-
ern States, had reared up another greedy, intriguing,
inHatial)le class, who sou<rht a livinir <Hit of irovernnient
expenditures. The politieal aims (if ev<'ry one of botli
th(;se classes were exclusively direct(;d to advancing his
indivi(hial pecunipj-y interest at the cost of others,
When tlie e tvv^o classes unit^Ml in pursuit of any o])ject.
if they did not make u[) tlie majority of the voters,
tlieir influence controlled that sovc.Teign majority in the
Northei-n States, and through it ruled tln^ country.

A strang(;r in tin; country, who had any faith in the
theories as to the simplicity, pui'ity, and economy of re-
publican government, might well wonder' what occasion
the [J. S. gov(3rnment had for a lirg(3 revenue. Its
army of 14,000 or 15,000 men (in l.SfiO) would have
formed but one strong division in tlu field. AH its ships
in commission would form, not a fleet, but a scpiauron.
IMie civil list called for ])ut a small number of neces-
saiy officials with very moderate salaries, *n the ex(;cu-
tive, ju'licial, and diphjmatic service; and it was not
])urdened with the expenses of a regal or evt^n vice-regal
court. The interest on the public debt, ^mount(id to
little or nothing. Tin? military and naval expim iitures,
the heaviest burden on other nations — here, if we might
judge from the strength or rather weakness of the army
and navy, was but {i featli(ir on its back. What did the
United States wiut with einhty millions of dollars?

How the money was spent we have not tim«' to show.
We cannot go into details. Let the believer in ivpubli-
can purity, simplicity, and economy, search into vhe
open vents and secret leaks by which the treasury vras

rNMAsKKD.

drained. An army of custom hons«.' officers, with a col-
lector and liis staff of suliordi nates, even for the pettiest
poits, wh<!re the (hitics C(jllecte<l did not suHice to ])ay
the sahiries of the collectors ; a post office, with 40,()()0
post masters, ami a yearly <l<!fieit of 7 or 8 millions, to
he supplied from the United States revenue ; numherless
puhlic w^orks, civil and inilita-y, affordini,' fatjohs, the
profits be in l;- divided in secret l>etwe('n the contract )rs
and till! governnitint officials ; rri-eat enterprises not
pnhlic, hut sultsidiztMl hy the generous p)ihlie, such as
the Pacific railroad, to which the government, besides
money and hind given, lent sixty millions in its ))onds,
{.11 which loan we btilieve no interest has Ix^en paid, and
the piincipal nev(!r will be paid — ^How this loan was
procured and appropriated the " Credit Mohiluir " in-
vestigation has unveile<l) — and numerous other enter-
prises subsidizcMl openly and secretly — some of which
have, whil(! most of tlwm have not, been as clearly ex-
plained as that of tlu; P;icific railroad ; Indian agencies,
where the agents grew marvellously rich while cheating
the Indians with one hand and the government with the
other ; military post sutler-ships, p ocured in Wasidng-
ton foi- a 'consideration,' being licenses to cheat soldiers
and others at every out of the way post — the least of
these classes of consumers of governnnnit revenue; had
Garagantua's mouth, with its capacity t<^ swallow
millions.

It was not easy to supply nil these demands. But hy
protective tarifis and governnu^nt revenue tariffs the
South was drained of its earnings and wealth, and tlie
North fattened and enriched — until the people there

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were utterly corrupted, and completely 1 -st .si^^'lit of the
true nature of the political institutions under which they
liad lived. The Federal «ajvernnient was to them the ir^'cat
hestower of Injunties, and tliey looked only to that, mag-
nilying its jurisdiction, and ready to sustain it in each
usurpation of power. It was their government, and a
source of yreat profit to them; for the jyreat value of
American citizenship was the privilege of taxing other
people's earnings and property for your own benetit; and
no one enjoyed it more thoroughly than those who had
neither earnings nor j)ropeity of their own. They
opposed and resented most bitterly every etibrt of tlie
Southern States and Southern statesmen to restrict the
measures of the Federal government to the limitjd and
speciiied powers delegated to it by the States. This
would not only curtail their bread and butter; it would
deprive them of their pate de foie gras and champagne.
The I^'ederal government in the hands of the people of
tlie Northern States pi-oved to be the greatest possible
corru})ter of the people. The principle on which the
country wa-s ruled was, 'To the victors belong tl.e spoil,'
the victor' being the i:!ajoi'ity who cai'ried the elections,
and the .s[ oil wdiat ever couhl be wrung out of the hands
of the minority by the agency of government measures
and legislaticjii. Another subordinate principle on which
they laid great stress was rotation in otiice.' According
to this, by the time a man had served his apprenticeship
in office, whether administrative, judicial or fiscal, he
should be turned out to make room for a new apprentice,
especially if another party had come into power. Tlie
labouring people learned to believe that the government

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owed them a livinLT, or at least was lionnd to hrinu'
pr()fital)le eniployment lujme to every man's door in the
Nortli; and those who had capital or credit held tliat it
was hound so to manage the afl'airs of the puhlic as to
afford them profitahle investments and spccnlations.
And liheral government expenditure was the most
ohvious means of attaining these ends.

There was nothing- that the people of the North feared
so much as lest the Southei-n States should become stronrj
enough in nund)er, and in their population, to be able to
protect tliemselves by their representation and votes in
Con'jress from unfair legislation and taxation on the part
of the Federal ifovernment. Conscious that thev were
plunderinfT their "^ outhern confederates tliev had learned
thoroughly to hate them.

An earlv indication of the faithlessness and animositv
of the North aijainst the South was thus exhibited: —
Under the colonial charters Virginia held very extensive
territories on the west of the Alleiihanv rauire, extendinti:
west and north-west to the Mississippi river and the
lakes; and North Carolina and Georgia held the terri-
tories west of them to the same river. These teri'itories
had very few whites settled in them, but were chiefly
occupied by Indian tribes. When a good many whites
had settled in the Kentucky territor\% Virginia author-
ized them to form a <^overnment of their own. North
Carolina authorized the white settlers i'l her Tennessee
territory to form a government for themselves; and these
two new States were arlmitted into the Union. Virginia
'nan ted the remainder of its western territorv. and
Georjjfia granted the whole of its western territories to

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the Fcdoral <^>vennnent, for tlic use and iM-mfit of all

tlie Stati's, At a later period the Federal governnniit
jjurehascd from I' ranee its title to that vast region, the
Louisiana tejritory, the nionev paid for it hein«r furnish-
ed hy all the peojjlc of all th** States. At a later peiiod
Flori<la and m.ieh Alexican territory were ac(piired and
ad<led to the teiritoiies or puhlic lands of the United
States. All these lands, exeept sueli particular tracts as
individuals had ac<[uiied titles to under former govern-
ments, as those of Spain and France, the Federal govern-
ment held in trust for the benefit of all the citizens of all
the States. They might be called (except that they
were not in actual individual possession.; joint-t(,'nants,
or co-parceners in common of this property. C'ertainly
the people of no one State had a greater right in it, than
those of any other State.

Under the constitution, the laws, an«l the practice of
the country, as long as this tenitory, or any part of it,
remained under the control of the Federal government,
any citizen of any State, had the right to migmte to any
part of it (except the in<lian reserves), carrying with him
his moveable property of any kind. The policy of the
country encouiaged the settlement of these territories ;
and after making surveys, the goveiTiment habitually
oliered the lap •-: for sale at a low price. Not only
might any citizen from any State j urchase land there,
but by settling on a tract of land not exceeding a certain
number of acres, (100 we believej, he actjuired a right
of pre-emption at the government price ; and he was
entitled to legal protection for all his personal and
proprietary rights, just as if he had Ixien still in his own
State from which he had migiated.

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Such parts of llicse toiritorics, as, from climate, soil,
or other natural features, attraete«l the attention of
Southern men hy liein^ favorahlc; to their occupations,
drew many »'mi;,n-ants from the Southern Statt;s, and
many of tluise emi;L,'rants carried ne^ro slaves with them.
To other portions of this common territory, dillerin^'
from the former in climate, soil, or other traits, emi;^rants
from the Northern States chiefly were attracted. Fewer
Southern mt n went there, and few or none cairied
slaves with them. When any part of this comnidn ter-
ritory, large enou^^^li to form a State, became sutliciently
settled to need, and he able to supj)ort a State govern-
ment, the peo})le there were permitted to organize; one,
and were admitted into the Union by an Act of Con-
gress. Then it stood on the same footing as any one of
the original thirteen States.

Thus it was that new States were added to the con-
federation, in accordance with the <lesign of the original
thirteen States when they founded the Union. Some of
these new States were peopled chiefly by (emigrants
from the Northern States, and had few or no ne^'ro
slaves in them. Others were peopled chiefly from the
Southern States, had many negro slaves in them, and
looked to have many more. These two different results
hail been brought about by geographical and physical
caus(!S. To lei-ions in which the white man could labour
to advantage few or no negroes were brought. Where
climate, soil, or other influences were adverse to the
field labour of the whites, the negroes were brought in.

When any part of this territory common to all the
States and to all the citizens of all the States, had thus

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become itself a State — ^tlicTi, and not until tlicn, did
there arise a sovenjii^n jurisdiction, in the new State;,
with autljority to d(!cid(! such a ([uestion as tlie n^taininir
or f^ettini,'' rid of ne^M'o slavery. Ft was now a State, as
much as Viri^inia, or any otlier ; anil liad sovereif^m
autliority, witliin it- ))orders, on every matt(M' of irovern-
ment and h'*,Mslation, except tliose wli'cli liad ])een ex-
{)ressly d(de_i(ated to the Federal ;^overnment. So far
from that ifovernment liavincr anv voice or iuris<liction
in this matter, it was ])Ound to aceoid to the new State
re|»r(!sentation for three-fifths of the slaves in it ; and
(!veiy Nortljern State had hound itself to ,i:,nv(3 up every
fu<(itive slave found within its borders, on application
of the State from which the slave had fled.

It must ])e remembered that the rinht, that is the
possession and control, which men (!xercise<l ovc^r their
slaves seldom, in any aL,n' or country, originated in legal
enactment. It was a practical right which legal enact-
ments found men in possession of, in many countrit^s and
und(!r various circumstances. The ori<dn and ()])iect of
laws in human society is, not to grant rights, but to
protect riglits wliicli men have ac<piired and possess —
but find to be insufficiently secured to them. The law
was called in to recognize, legulate, and secui'e to the
possessors that whicli they obviously held. 'I'he law no
more gave them possession of their slaves, than of their
horses, and cattle, and household goods. The law which
punishes the horse-thief adds nothing to the proprietary
right of the owner, but it adds much to his sccuiity in
the enjoyment of his right. Even admitting that the
State governments were wrong not to abolish negro

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slavery — a matter within their jurisdiction — for their
conunon a^aint, for tlu; Federal government, creat(;d for,
and limited to other special matters of h'gislation, to

and

legislate as to negro slavery, was an actor |)ure
outrageous usuf})ation. liut it was ordy the culminating
act of a long series of usurpations.

The people of the Northern states having long drawn
immense trihute from the South throui^h the Fecleral
government by its plundering taiifl'system for jiiotection
and reviinue, feared lest the Southern States might grow
too numerous, populous, and strong, to continue tosuhiidt
to this system of plunder, particularly at'tc^r tiie acquisi-
tion of extensive territories in the South, resulting fiom
the ann(!xation of Texas and the war with Mexico.
They at once exhihited increased hostility to the ScMith,
and laboured to put a brand of infiiriority up(,n it. They
claimed that (Jongrciss had, andshoidd exercise the right
to prevent any part of the connnon territory becoming a
slave-holding State, even though it had been peopled by
enngrants from the South, taking their slaves thither
with them. Many of the Northern States nuide it
criminal to arrest or assist in arresting the very fugitive
slaves which the State had pledged itself, under the
treaty of the Union, to deliver to the owners. And on
some occasions when fugitive slaves were arrested under
process issuing from the U. S. courts, the people resisted
the oiiicers, in sonn; cases killing them, ami rescued the
fugitives. Organized societies in the North employed
agents to tamper with the negroes in the South, in order
to render them dissatisfi(;d, and induce them to run away;
and they provided the means to facilitate their escape.

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This thcv called their under ground railroad. The}
boasted publicly of the success of these intriguini^ opera-
tions against their Southern confederates. But in truth,
their success was small, more aggravating than injunous.
the fugitive ne;j:roes never beini; numerous. It served
chiefly to show their animosity against their confeder-
ates, and their shameless violatioji of the pledges they
ha<l given when confederating with them.

When ever people arrive at the conviction that slave-
holding is sinful, the}' are in conscience bound to give it
up at once. This is true of individuals and of nations.
But we cannot tolerate a one-sided conscience. The peo-
ple of the North by this time held no slaves. They had
not foimd them profitable, anrl had sold most of those
that were saleable to their Southern confederat'-s. But,
in order to secure a confederated union with the South,
they had covenn-nted to allow them additional representa-
tion in Congress for three-fifths of their slaves, and each
State pledged itself to deliver up fugitives from labour
and service, that is, slaves, on the demand of the confed-
erate from whom they had fled. They did these things
willingly, in order to secure a political and commercial
union with the slave-holding States, because they de-
rived great profit from that union — and those conditions
were the price they were willing to pay for it.

When their newly enlightened consciences taught them
that this union with the slave-holder " was a covenant
with Hell" as they now learned to call it, they Avere in
an awkward dilemma. Yet they might have found an
honest way out of it. No doubt mi'n have a right to
rescind a contract that binds them to a crime. To take

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the highost possible ease, notlnii;^ VmiI the want of en-
Hijhtennien't of conseience leads to the fulfilment of a
pledge like Jephtha's vow. But he who refuses to ful-
fil a criminal compact, must not claim the reward that
temptetl him to make it. The newly conscientious
Northern States might have rescin<led their "covtMiant
with Hell" as they called their compact of union with the
unrepentant slave-holding South. They might have
seceded from union with it. But on what plea could
tl:ey annul such articles of the treaty <if T^nion as had
become distasteful to them, vet claim the fulfilment of
such other provisions of the treaty as were ]>rofital)le to
them?

Yet this difficulty seems never to have startled the
conscience of this most conscientious people, or ever to
have occurred to the mind of any of them, except one
crazy Yankee orator, who once urged secession from the
slave-holding South, but was cpiickly silenced, and did
not himself adluTe to this honest policy.

The simple truth is that every Northern man felt that
the North was deriving innnense profits from its political
union with the slave-holding States; and if he were a
clear headed man who understood the fiscal polic}' of the
jrovernment, he knew that these immense Northern
profits were the proceeds of a system of taxation, that was
no better than the robber^' of one part of the confeder-
ation for the benefit of the other. But the anti-slaverv
party proclaimed and believed that the South would
yield (piite as much and more plunder, when cultivated
by free negroes, as by slaves. They ha<l no fears of
losing money by emancipating the slaves of their Cott-

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federates, or their consciences would have failed to carry
them through the task they imposed upon tliemselves.
Their aim was to yoke conscience and i)r()fit together.

Tliere is a fascination in the conviction tliat we are
more righteous than our ncughhours, which leads us to
dwell up(m that belief, and on the feelings generated by
it. There is too something grand and heroic in that
j)hilanthropy which busies itself in I'ighting great wrongs
committed by other peojile, especially when remote from
us ; for they best admit of embellishment from the glow-
ir.g colours of the imagination. And to too many hearts
it is intensely gratifying to find an object for unlimited
denunciation and vituperation. It would be curious and
peihaps instructive to collect choice samples of the
phraseology of the orators who denounced negro slavery
and the Southern slaveholders. They exhausted eveiy
known anathema, invente>l new ones, and exhausted
them; yet the mouths of these same orators might be
full the next moment of jjraises of tlic Pilgrim Fathers
of Massachusetts, wlio held tliirir slaves, indian and
negro, by, we must suppose, especial license from
heaven. It would not, however, be so safe to conclude
that these, intlignant philanthrophists could never have
Ijeen themselves seduced into the sins they denounced,
as to remember that tht-v were far remote from the
opportunity and temptation to commit them. It was
commonly remarke<l in the South that such Northern
men as came thithtu*, and became slave-holders, usually
proved the most exacting of masters ; while their
brethren in the North certainly made no scruples, and
used every device, for exacting all they could out of the

IINMASKKI).

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proci'tMls of So^^lli•rn iiidiistrv liy a uuy^i frau«lnk*nt
system of taxation.

AIt]iou;,di tlie fL'olin;jjs of hostility an«l <K'prcciation
towards the Southern Statics, as slave-holdinir cfMiiniu-
nities. pervach'd tlu; nhoh? North, exeeptinj,' a class of
individuals rather respeetaV)le than nuniorous, yi*t for a
long time the anti-slavery party pure and siinple,
seemed to l)e an increasin<; minority, hiit not a fast-
ii^rowing party rapidly ahsorhini^ all othfiN. The Imlk
of the lahourinir class at the North indicated, hv their
treatment of tlie fiee-coloured peo[)le auHUig then), that
they were not so nnich hent on the al)oliti«m of slavery,
as on the abolition of the negro, as sometliing that stood
in their way. But tin; mass of the people, and yet more
of the merchants, capitalists and politicians, felt that,
for the peace of the country and the profit of the North,
this 'Question of neuro slaverv must !•»• handl»'d with
great delicacy, and as far as possible let alone. They
disclaimed for the Federal LTovernnu'nt anv iuiisdiction
in the matter, except jx'rhaps in the territories. Among
the multitude of evidences of this, it is onlv necessarv
to refer to one : the inaugural address of him who
proved to he the abolition President, disclaims all right
to meddle with slavery in the States. The connuercial
prosperity and financial credit of the whole North was
based chiefly on the produce of tli«; Southern States; and
most people in the North professed to be angered at the
violence of the genuine anti-slavery party, and alarmed
at its rapid growth, fearing an interruption of the profit-
able condition of tra(h* and finance. While this lasted
the fiscal policy of the government secured to them too

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lar^a; a sliaro of tlie proceeds of slave labour, for them
to desire the abolition iA' negro slavery.

Tlu; people of th<; Southern States, as a body, had been
exceedinijfly blind to the nature anil effects of the artful
fiscal policy by which the North had been long robbing
them. It inv<jlved too many explanations to be made
clear to the masses. But they were not deaf to the un-
measured denunciations and falsehoods their Northern
confe<lerates had been long preaching and publishing
against them. Nor were they blind t(j the demonstra-
tions and overt acts of hostility ventured upon by the
more virulent of the anti-slavery party. But here was,
or seemed to be, a numerous party in the North, who
professed to adhere to the terms of the compact on
which the union of the States had been formed ; and
who loudly protested against the aggressions of the
Northern States and people against their Southern
confederates. Putting faith in this party, and acting
with it, the Southern States still hoped to be able to
lemain in the Union with self-respect and safety.

An election of President of the United States was to
come on late in 1800, and the whole Union was greatly
agitated by the canvass. The anti-slavery party chose
for their candidate an until lately obscure man — of little
capacity or attainments, except as wliat is called a
stump (^I'ator. He had a genius for diverting a rude
Western crowd with fuimy stories and coarse witticisms.
Some able speeches were delivered by him, but they
were prepared by another man. His own serious efforts
only proved his ignorance aud shallowness. But he
was popular in the great North-west, and was a man

.>^r.

UNMASKED.

whom tlie party knew how to use for their purposes.
Another party which expressly disclaimed for tlie Fed-
eral government an}' right to interfere with slavery in
the States, but claimed for it the right to prohibit it in
the common territoi-ies, nominated for their- candidate
an eminent Noith western politician, the zealous ex-
pounder of 'Stjuatt^ir Sovereignty.' A third party of no
definite views, except peace at any price, brought out
their candidate. And a fourth, consisting of tlie people
of the Southern States and such people in the North as
maintained the permanence and sanctity of the terms,
on which tlie Union had been formed, and the limita-
tions on the powers of the Federal government, nominat-
ed their candidate. The result was that the anti-slav-
ery party carried every Northern State, and the elec-
tion — the fourth party cari-ied every Southern State,
and the other parties were nowhere.

The people of the Southern States now found that
they were living under a government completely in the
hands of their enemies, utterly hostile to their rit'hts and
interests, and claiming a right not only to surround and
hedge them out from all right in the common territories,
and reduce them to complete and hopeless subjection,
but to revolutionize their internal political and social
ortranization. This was not the confederation into which
they had entered; this was not th(3 government which
they had joined in creating. ITnless they could submit
to be revoluticmized by external enemies, and become
mere tributary provinces to them, it was high time to
break oft* all connection with utterly faithless confeder-
ates, wliom the most solemn treaty could not bind. The

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Southern States l)egan to secede from the Union in
iaj>i«l succession, and war was made upon the South to
force thein back into it.

We shall make little comment on the war. But tlie
pcoi)le of the Soutli were surprised to see those Northern
politicians, mercliants, capitalists, and others who made
up the ])emocratic party there, and who had joined in
loudly protesting' against the usurpations of the govern-
ment and th(^ aj'i'ressions on the South — to see these
men tln-ow tliemselves into the arms of the n<'w admin-
istration, seek from it office and military commands and
profitable contracts, and become the zealous sustainers
of every measure to crush the South. A few months
after proclaiming its wrongs, they were eagerly making
war upon it This seemed strange; yet their conduct is
easily explained. Wldle tliey could keep the South in
the Union, they enjoyed the profits of negro slave labour.
If the South seceded they lost all the profits of slave-
labour. The names of these men are legion, as the
political journals of 1800-1 clearly show.

But there were examples of very ditterent conduct
among the most eminent men in the North. The Ex-
President Franklin Pierce continued to pronounce the
grievances complained of by the South to be real, and the
conduct of the North and of the government a series of
outrages. Ex-President Filmore, when urged by a great
popular assembly in New York to become a mediator
between the North and the South, for the preservation
of the Union, replied: — 'Let the people and the legisla-
tive assemblies of the North make redress for their out-
rages, and repeal their unconstitutional acts, and I will

■»!»■■

UNMASKED.

Lflndly fjo to inoiliate for tin' Tiiion. But until they do
that, I wi!l not lnulj^'e one step." The secession of several
States oreurrin;( (hiriiiij tlie last niontlis of Presiihrnt
Huehanan's adniinistr.ition. he both hv words and
actions showed tliat lie lield the ;^rievances of the SoJith-
ein States to be real, and felt ;;reat scruples at using
force to keep them in the Union. But tlie Northern
pressure broui^lit to bear upon liini wa> overwht'luiin*,'.
Mr. Charles O'Connor of New York, a man of hi^h and
unspott(»d character, and the most eminent lawyer in the
United States, ])tililislied an elaborate address to the
public, maintaininif the rijjjht of any state to secede fr an
the Union on tlie violation, by other States or by
the Federal ;;overnment, of its ri'dits under the Consti-
tution; and he scouted at the idea that either the
{government or the other States had a shadow of ri<(ht
to use forc(; to retain the seceding State in the Union.
And five years after, when the war was over, the South
conquered, and the (,'onfederate President, Jc^ti'erson
Davis a prisoner in Fortress Monroe, Mr. 0'(.\>nnor at
once offered himself as his counsel; maintainiu'^ the im-
possibility of convlctini^ him of any crime. The govern-
ment reluctantly perct'ive 1 this impossibility of ctmvic-
tion on any charge that couM bear legal scrutiny. Some
months after Abraham Lincoln had bev'ome Presi<lent,
Chief Justice Taney, for nearly thirty years the head of
the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest
judicial authority in the Union, had occasion to
pronounce, judicially, that the measures of the govern-
ment and the conduct of the President and his subor-
dinates amounted to tlie overthrow of the Constitution

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arnl a tramplirifj on all law. But military officers, with
the sanction of the President, thrust aside the writs of
habeas corpus issued from the U. S. courts, with the
utmost contempt.

On the breaking out of the P^nglish revolution in 1088,
Sergeant Maynard, a luminary of the English bar,
liastened to join the standard of William, Prince of
Orange; who, on seeing liim, bluntly said: — 'From your
extreme age you must have outlive<l all tl»e lawyers of
your day." "If your Higlmess had not come quickly"
he answered "I should have outlived, not only the
lawyers but the law." Less happy than the Nestor of
the English bar, the Chief Justice now found that, in his
extreme old age, he had outlived the law.

There was no right more expressly acknowledged and
fully secured to the people than the right to keep and
bear arms. It was a right that lay at the very foun-
dation of government, both State and Federal — and the
most essential element in the security of the liberties
and the rights of the citizen. Nor was any right more
fully in the hands of the States, according to the Con-
stitution, the laws, and the custom of the country, than
that of officering, arming, and training the milLtia. This
was the military force of the State, and the Federal
government could only obtain the services of any part
of it by applying to a State government for it. Further,
if there was anything well established in the Union by
the Constitution, the laws, and the customs of the
country, it was the freedom of internal commerce. Any
man had a right to buy anything offered for sale, and
carry it to any part of the Union without hindrance.

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UNMASKED.

Yet when, U-foio the Soutliern States liad s«ce«lo<l
from the Union, many individuals in the South and
some of the State ^.overnments, liecominjL^ alarmed at the
threatening a^pect of affairs and the unarnuMl condition
of the South, attempted to purchase arms and ammuni-
tion, the Nortiiern people and State «^o\eniments were
at once awake and active. The police of the States
and the cities w«!re set to watch eveiy shipment hy
coa-st, river and railroa*! ; and all arms consigned to any
one suspt cted of connection with the South were at
once seized upon. All legal right was trampled upon.
It was assumed that the Southern States were already
subject provinces preparing for re))ellion.

These <loings were loudly protested against even at
the North. The New York Herahl, among others, de-
nounced it as " a clearly illegal proceeding, in violation
of the Constitution, and without the sanction of any
law of the State. It is an unwarrantable outrage on
the rights of private property, 6lc."

Fernando Wood, Mayor of New York, in reply to the
inquiries of Mr. Toombs, Senator from Georgia, says:
" I regret to say that arms intended for and consigned
to the State of Georgia have been seized by the police;
but the city of New York should in no w^ay be made
responsible for the outrage. As mayor I have no
authority over the police. If I had the power, I .should
summarily punish the authors of this unjustifiable
seizure of private property."

How came the Southern members of this Federal
republic to be so destitute of arms and armament?
The States had for many years neglected to keep up

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any cfticit'nt arsonal.s of their own, relying on those of
the common government in all contingencies. The Fed-
eral iTovernment had in sttre large amounts of arms
and ordnance, procured hy contract, or made at itf* own
establishments, all of which, exeei)t one on the NortluMn
border of Virginia, were in the Northern States. These
arms, when received, were distrihuted among many
depots, some of which were in the Southern States.

President Buchanan's Secretary of War was John B.
Flo}*!, wlio had been (Jovernor of Virginia, as liis father
had l)een before him. Both had b(M.'n strenuous main-
tainers of the rights of the South(;rn States in opposition
to tlu^ aggr(!ssions of the N(»rth. Sud«lenly there arose
at the North a loud outcry that this Southerner had
availed liimself of his position, as head of the War De-
partment, to transfer large amounts of arms from the
North to the South, in anticipation of Secession ; thus
arming the 'rebels' while he disarme<l the true men and
their government. For tlie people there almost univer-
sally looked upon the Federal government, with its
powers and means, as something belonging to them-
selves. It was not for one moment remembered that
any property in the hands of the government belonged
quite as much to the people of the South as of the
North.

When Congress promptly investigated this charge, the
facts at once explained and refuted it. There had been
great neglect for years in replenishing the depots
(called arsenals) at the South. But the United States,
now following the example of European governments,
had of late been laying aside the smooth-bored musket,

UNMASKED.

and old-fasliionod riflo, .sul)stitutin<' the Minio riflo
in their place. In Deceniher, 18.')l), Seerctaiy Fh)yd
had ordered 11.5,000 anus of thfse anti(|iiati!d patt«;rns
to be sent to Southern arsenals, to make room for the
new arms in the Northern armories. The arsenals in the
South received not one of these improved weapons. In
the issue, one of the «jdds again>t the Southern troops was
having to contend against an enemy provided with the
new and superior weapon. A large portion of the better
arms they afterwafils obtained were taken on the battle-
field from defeated enemies. Notwithstanding the evi-
dence to the contrary, Secretary Floyd was persistently
charged with treason, for sending ll.l.OOO old muskets
to dejiots in the South, although President Buchanan
pointed out the fact that 500,000 of these old weapons
still encumbered the arsenals in the North. Had Floyd
foreseen the secession of the Southern States, perhaps
he would have taken care that there should be a more
equal distribution of government arms and munitions of
war among States, each of which had an ecjual right to
them. Yet Pi'esident Lincoln, in his message to Con-
gress on the 5th of July, 1801, did not scruple to assert
that * a disproportioned amount of arms and nmnitions
of Avar had some how found themselves in the Southern
States.'

Thus the Northern States and their people had control
of the government, with its treasury and credit, of the
army and forts, of the navy, with the power of blockading
the Southern coast; and they lost no time in using that
power. The South, which had chiefly paid for all these
things, and had an equal right to them, had no part of

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thoin. Tru(3 to its policy of dniinin^ all it could from
the South, and rcturnin«,' as little as possilile, tho <ifovern-
niont niado nearly all its military, naval cand other ex-
penditures at tlic North, and kept the results there,
except the arnianients of a few forts, as Fortress Monroe,
Fort Sumter, Pulaski, Pickens, and others, which served
as bridles in the mouths of Southern harbours. The
people of the North seemed to aim at keepin«]r the Soutli
in the condition of the Israelites under the iron rule of
the Philistines, 'There was no smith in all the land of
Israel; for the Philistines said — lest the Hebrews make
them swords and spears.'

The people of the Northern States made several jj^ross
blunders in estimating the condition of the South.
(Talle} rand tells us that, in politics, a blunder is worse
than a crime.) Thev had tau'dit themselves to believe
that the South would be yet more productive and profit-
able to them under free negro labour than under slave
labour. They looked upon the condition and feelings of
the negroes as identical with that of prisoners unj.ustly
shut up in gaol. They believ^nl that the people of the
South felt that they were sitting on a volcano —
knowing that the negroes were only waiting on their
northern friends for the signal for insurrection to rise in
arms against their cruel oppressors; and that under
this fear the people of the South dared not resist the
aggressions of the North and of the government under
their control.

The people of the South and their leaders committed
manv and great blunders. But we will onlv name one
which we think the first and greatest of all. The poli-

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UNMASKED.

101

ticians, ur«^in;jf on tlie people tlie n«;cossity of seceding
from the Union, luiiversally pronounced secession to be
a j)eaeeful ri»(lit. And si) it was. The terms of tlie treaty
which had united the States into a confe<kMation Ijuvinjr
heen grossly, repeatedly, and notoriously violated by
the Northern States, to tlie injury of the Southern, any
one or all of tliem ]»ad a right to declare the treaty
null and voi<l, and withdraw from the Union. This was
a peaceful right and no act of hostility. But the poli-
ticians went beyond this and assure<l the people that
secession would ])rove a peaceful remedy for their
wi'ongs. This was as gross an absurdity as any man,
calling himself a statesman could utter. The people of
the Northern States hail control of the Federal i^overn-
ment and of all its powers and resources; they had been
for years in the enjoyment of large contributions or
rather tribute from tlie inihistry antl fertility of the
South; their prosperity had been largely, we think
chieHy built upon these contributions, an* I must decline
on their withdrawal. Now it is Hying in the face of all
history and all experience in human nature to suppose
that any people or government, with large means of
waging war, will abandon possession of rich tributary
territories without first striving to retain them by force
<if arms. It matters not whether the tribute is the
result of robbery or of right. They will tiglit rather
than give it up.

Some individuals in the South uttered earnest warn-
ings that secession meant war, for it must lead to it; and
urged prompt preparation for it. But they had not the
ear of the people. If the South had any statesmen,

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THE UNITED STATES

their counsels were not heard amid the harangues of
politicians; and the States which seceded went out of
the Union, with the most flimsy preparations for main-
taining in arms the step they had taken. The most im-
portant provisions made for defence were due to the
foresight and activity of a few individuals.

In the war that ensued the five millions of whites in
the seceding Confederate States had to fight their own
battles, half armed, and cut off from the outside world:
but the twenty-two millions in the Northern States,
supplied the deficiencies of the U. S, armaments by draw-
ing supplies from all Europe. But what they seemed
most to need were fighting men; for they continued to
otter higher and higher bounties, until they had enlisted
a quarter of a million of Irish and another of Germans,
many, perhaps most of them fresh from home, tempted
not only by high l)Ouuties, but by the hope of free farms
from the lands of the 'rebels' which were freely,
although privately promised them. We can hardly have
over-stated the number of foreigners in the U. 8. army.
At, the end of the war the number of mtii in the service
was one million. The report of the Surgeon-General of
the United States certifies that the majority of those
who came into the hospitals were Irish and Germans.
And the Confederates found that a great part of the
prisoners they took had not left Ireland o»- Germany
long. The Yankees themselves much preferred army
contracts to military service.

After a four years' bloody struggle the Confederate
States were overrun and conquered ; the negroes, who
had remained quiet all the time, were emancipated, the

les of

out of
main-
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ites in
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States,

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empted
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ly have
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UNMASKED.

103

State governments were overthrown, an<l the people
thorou^dily plundered. In truth, many of the later
military expeditions were little else than cotton stealing
raids, which well account for the sudden wealth of nimy
officers, from the commander in chief downw^ards. But
mere plunder did not satisfy them. Two facts indicate
the spirit which actuated the Northern government and
armies. When their columns, marching through the
country, came to a house of the better class, which was
deserted by the family for fear of being robbed and in-
sulted, they usujilly burned it as the home of a traitor, and
sometimes burned a whole town to unhouse a nest of
traitors. Yet more galling to tho.se who valued religious
liberty above worldly possessions was the fact that, by
order of the government, all the Anglo- Episcopal
churches were closed, in which the President of the
United States was not prayed Un\

The Conquered provinces were then placed under
military governors, until the farce could be uone through
of reconstructing the state government according to the
orders and plan sent from Washington. They are now
indeed called States, but they are still conquered and
subjected provinces.

We say this from the conviction that but for the dom-
inating power of the Northern States, and the military
force of their government at Washington, the re-con-
structed state governments in the South would not have
stood one day.

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4 S ' . •'

CHAPTER VII.

The Effects of this Revolution on the Whole Ifnioiu

We mav seem at times to have wandered from our
subject, but we believe that all we have hitherto said
w^i'l assist the reader to understand the piesent condition
of the United States.

In 1800 the United States were, or seemed to be, the
most prosperous of countries. The financial credit of
the government, of the individual States, and of num-
berless great corporations, stood exceedingly high in
Europe, and enabled the countiy to borrow on easy
terms all the capital it wanted. All the world that had
money to lend thought the United States the best place
to lend money in. This almost unlimited credit was
based, not merely on the then present prosperity of the
country, but yet more on its rapid progress towards
greater prosperity.

But wlien we examine into the sources of this credit,
we find that the importance of the United States to the
rest of the world was chiefly commercial and financial;
and that its growing importance in these respects was
based chiefly on the annually increasing production by
the Southern States, of staples to the value of three
hundred and thirty millions of dollars already, and in-
creasing in amount and value every year. The exports
of the rest of the Union were trifles compared to this.

■ n'

THE UNITED STATES UNMASKED.

105

The greater part of the productions of the South found
a ready market in Europe, and the whole of them would
have done so, if a large part had not been diverted, by
most unjust legislation, to serve as tribute to swell the
prosperity of the people of the Northern States, serving
to raise still higher that financial credit, of which they
were making such free use.

This credit, much shaken during the war of Secession,
was fully restored by the success of the North and of
its government, as long as the real eff(>cts of this war
could l)e concealed and misrepresented. Indeed few of
those who now feel these effects most sorely seem yet to
understand the causes of them. We will endeavour to
point them out plainly.

When the Southern States were crushed, conquered,
and revolutionized, besides the vast number of Northern
men who flocked thither, or, leaving the army, remained
there, in search of office, and plunder by means of oflice,
a crowd of Northerners, of a somewhat different stamp,
came down into the South. Their government had ex-
pended more than 3,000,000,000 of dollars in preserving
these states, now conquered provinces, to the Union:
and these men came to render the fertile South more
profitable than ever to the North, by means of free
negro labour; and to make their own fortunes while
so doing. These Northern speculators brought an im-
mense amount of Northern capital and Northern credit
with them. Many of them sought to do a thriving
business by lending largely to embarrassed Southern
planters on mortgage of their lands, at 15, 18 and 20 per
cent interest. But the greater number of thase men

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were convinced that the Southern planters had always
been too indolent and ignorant to manaf^e their affairs
with skill, an<l that they themselves could now show
them how to make crops.

They bought numberless plantations, an«l where they
could not buy they leased them. They bought tools,
imphaiients and machinery ; repaired barns, cotton gins,
sugar-mills, &c., and hired negroes freely. They we»e
certain that free negro labour would prove better and
cheaper than slave labour. They found the negro
generally ready to hire himself. The tlitiiculty was to
make him fulfil his engagement.

Of the Southern planters some few, even under their
altered circumstances, by skill, economy, and good luck,
have been able to make a decent living. But the most
successful of them are far poorer than they were — nine-
tenths of them are greatly impoveiished, and three-fifths
of them are already utterly ruined. This is the condition
of those, born in the country, familiar with the nature
of the negro, and bred up to agricultural pursuits there.
But what of the new-comers from the North, with un-
told millions at their command, most of it bon-owed in
Europe or originally drained fi'om the formerly fertile
fields of the South ? We do not pretend to know hew
much of Northern capital has gone Southward fiom first
to last, either as the means of entering on these specula-
tions, or in the effort to sustain them, or to lend at high
interest to Southern land-holders, or in buying up the
stocks of dilapi<lated and embarrassed Southern rail-
roads, and in building there numberless new rail-roads,
anticipating a most prosperous future for the country.

UNMASKED.

107

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But in place of prosperity came ruin; and the old and
the new roads are bankrupt. But we are sure that the
outlay amounts to many hundreds of millions. We know
that most of the money lenders have been compelled to
take the mortgaged plantations, and turn plantei-s them-
selves, or sell the plantation for far less than the debt
under the moi'tgages.

We have yet to hear of one decidedly successful
Northern man who went to the South and turned
planter. Nine out of ten, perhaps nineteen out of twen-
ty, have been utterly ruined. These Northern specula-
tors have become more thoroughly bankrupt than even
the Southern planters. We are certain that 1)0 per
cent, of the capital carried to the South has been sunk
there, never to rise again, and only serves to swell im-
mensely the vast amount the North spent to preserve
the Union. The truth is that since 18GG the crops
grown in the cotton States, at least, perhaps in all the
eleven States that seceded, have not paid the cost of
growing them ; and year by year the South has grown
poorer and poorer.

Many facts prove this : and, first, the returns of the
census of 1870, compared with those of 1860. The cen-
sus furnishes evidences of an astonishing decline in the
productions of the Southern States ; so great as to war-
rant the conclusion that these States actually produce
less than they consume.

To prove this we will go into some details. Cotton,
sugar, and rice, are produced only in the South, and we
select the facts as to these articles, because the whole
deficiency falls upon the South.

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THE UNITED STATES

Tlie cotton crop of 18(10 amounted to 5,387,000 Imles.
The crop of 1870 was 3,011,000 bales, being a decline of
2,37:),000 bales. in the ten years from 18:)0 to 1800
the cotton crop had advanced from 2,400,000 bales to
more than double. But in stating the produce of single
years, as the census does, and not a series of years, we
know that an unfavourable, compared with a favourable
season, somewhat exaggerated the progress of increase.
But had the usual average increase of the cotton crop
continued down to 1870, it would have amounted to
eight or nine millions, nearly three times as much as
the crop of 1870.

The production of sugar in 1800 was 231,000 hogs-
heads. In 1870 it had fallen to 87,000 hogsheads, not
much over one-third.

The rice crop in 1800 amounted to 215,313,000 pounds.
In 1870 it had fallen to 73,035,000, little more than one-
third.

In Virginia the tobacco crop in 1800 was 123,308,000
pounds. In 1870 it fell to 37,080,000, less than a third.

The only Southern State in which wheat was an
important crop was Virginia. In 1800 the crop
amounted to 13,131,000 bushels. In 1870, to 7,398,000
— somewhat more than half.

Maize, ur indian corn, is a most important crop in the
Soutliern States, being the chief breadstuff of the
people, and the chief food of live stock on a farm. In
some States, down to 18()0, there was a considerable
surplus for exportation.

The States of Virginia, North and South Carolina,
Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and

UNMASKED

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Arkansas, in 1«()0, pro.luced 2(;3,'2!)1,000 iMishels of in-
<lian corn. In 1870 they produced I^O.IO.S.OOO busliels,
about tliree-tit'tlis of the former crop. There was noth-
in<( left for exportation. Was it enough for food ?

We will not cram our reader witli .stati.stica, the
driest and most chaffv of all mental fo(jd — hut refer him
to the heavy volumes of the census. Takin*,' the chief
production of the Southern States it is apparent that
the avera<j[(; amount of thtiii- ])roductions in 1870 was
little, perlia[)s no more than half of what it was in
1800, yet there was some increase of population in those
ten vears.

Now a decline of one-half in the productions of a
country may well imply that it has fallen from tbe
height of prosperity into utter ruin. It may iniply tha -
the country consumes all, and more than all, it produces,
and that there is no surplus beyond the cost of produc-
tion, and ev(Mi that may not be re[)laced. What country
is there that produces yearly twice as much as it con-
sumes ^ We know of none. The truth is that the
South, esjiecially the cotton States, have grown poorer
year by year, from 18G."> to this day. So far from pro-
ducing any surplus, it has been living irom hand to
mouth on tlui Northern capital carried there by san-
guine speculators within the last twelve years. The
South since 1805, has been sutfcning un<ler a chronic
state of scarcity of the necessaries of life, at high pricjs
in a poor country. Far more cases of death from actual
want occur in it, and chiefly among the negroes and
especially their children, than rn any country in which
productive land is abundant in proportion to the popu-
lation. M

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THE UNITED STATES

We know that a totally different picture from this is
assiduously presented to the worM, as exhibiting the
present condition of the South. Every ne\vspaj)er
there, and every man of ])usiness who has his capital
at stake there, does the utmost to give a favorable im-
pression as to the revival of industry and prosperity.
They vainly hope by concealing ruiti to ward it off.
They are galvanizing a corpse. But t!iis concealment
and misrepresentation become more impossible every
day.

It must not be imagined that the Southern States,
taken as a whole, form a very fertile region. It is nat-
urally less fertile by far than England, Ireland, France,
Italy, and other countries we could name. Its late
prosperity was based, first on the abundance of improv-
able la?i(l, and then not less on agricultural skill and
industry, protected by well ordered and economical State
ixovernments, which no longer exist.

There is no better measure of the prosperity and
decline of a country than the rise and fall iu the price
of land. There is a great deal of land in the Southern
States that never was sold but at very low prices — and
much may be said never to have had an}?^ value but for
the timber fjrowini,^ on it. Of these lands we need not
speak ; but of the fertile an<l improvable soils much had
been rendei-ed highly productive, and nmch that changed
hands from time to time brouj^ht hii'h and increasir.ff
prices. A vast deal of land has been sold since the
end of the war, and prices have eontinue<l to fall from
year to year. And in the cotton States at least, it would
be an extravagant estimate to suppose that land would

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on an average bi-in':' one-fourtli tin; ])rico it wouM
readily have connnaiiiled before 1800, Iiuleed in many
parts of tlie country, formerly liighly prosperous, many
plantations have been soM for less than a tenth of their
former value, an«l the puichasers have been since ruined
by cultivating them. It may be .said now as to the
plantation States, that with rare exceptions, land can
find no sale, has no price, and is often not worth the
tax imposed on it. Extensive and valuable estates with
costly improvements on them, and in the cultivation
of which in cotton, sugar, and rice, many thousands of
dollars were expen«led every ye.ir, are now thrown out
untilled, and the dwellings, mills and other buildings are
rotting to the ground. There is very far less land under
cultivation than in 1800, the cultivation is far worse,
and dilapidation and abandonment increa.se from year
to year. Most of the negroes who have bought or
rented land to farm for themselves, fail even to feed
themselves, and after a vcar or two return to the condi-
tion of hired labourers — and can be little relied on as
such. In the greatei* part of the country all other
culture is slighted to make the cotton crop, the only one
that brings any money into the country, and of that but
a half crop is made. It is very difficult to ascertain
what the cotton crop now amounts to. Before 18G0 it
was estimated from the receipts at the Southern ship-
ping ports, no account beiu;, taken of the small percent-
age used in the regions that produced it. But now
much of the crop goes northward, inland, by the Missis-
sippi and the railroads. We believe that the same
cotton is sometimes counted twice, perhaps thrice, in

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THE IJNITKI) STATES

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iiiakin*^ up the estimates of th(^ cro;i — for instance at
M<>mpliis, then at St. Loiuh, tlion at s )ine Atlantic port,
Tlie cotton buyers, early in tli<; season use every device
to make tlie crop out lnij,^3r than it really is; as that
cluuipens the staple to tlieui. An«l tliey find no more
efKcient a;4ents for this purpose than tlie officials of the
United States aL,nicultural bureau, which reports from
time to time the prospects of tlie crop.

Yet the hulk of the exports from the Union are still
furnished hy these impoverished Southern Stat<'s, in the
shape of cotton, tobacco, and some other products, nmch
as they are reduced in ([uatitity and value. And the
"^a'cater part of the revenue of the United States is still
derived from a tariff system, which is simply a robbery
of the South.

There is one interest in the South wliich, in many
parts of the country, has suffere<l even moie than agricul-
ture, and that is pastoral industry. Great as have been
the depredations of the negroes on the fanners' crops;
(and cotton affords peculiar facilities to the thief, as it
can 1)6 gathered and sold in the same night to the
receivers of stolen produce now infesting the country)
tlieir depredations on his live stock exceed thtin.
Although the climate in the greater part of the South is
too hot for a line glazing country, these States formerly
))red numbers of lioises, kine, swine, and sheep. The
lartre amount of unenclosed land furnishes a free and
wide range for them. But the census shows a monstrous
diminution of live stock of all kinds, and we know that
in particular parts of the country planters who had
large stocks of cattle, sheep and swine running at large,

ice at

UNMASKED.

118

now liavc nono. Tlic idle and liun«^'ry ne'groos killed
them oH" sceretly i!» the woods and swamps, and hy
ni^ht. Luekily they liavi; not acciuinMl the French
taste for horse-Hesh. We know that not a few plant rs
still cultivatinL,' much land, and who once had herds of a
hn!idretl head, have not one cow. All the milk their
fannlies now use is that which is imported, drie«l and
prepared for sale in ])afkaj,'es. A c )W would luive to be
kept tmder lock and k«'y to prevent thf nt:L,n'oes milkin<^
it. We knew other jdanters who had herds of swine in
their woo<le<l swamps, and fattened and killed oni; or
two hundred every winter, who do not now <i;et one from
that source.

With th(^ i'xc 'ption of the jjjreat ffnizmfr State of
Texas, the South has lo!ijj^ failed to siipply itself with
animal food. Th(( scanty ^-.upply of bacon eaten there is
imported from the North Western States.

Previous to 18(10 the Southern States were the most
prosperous agricultural couununities in the worM. But
even then their prosperity accrued, not so much to their
own benefit as to that of the Northern States; for the
sovereign majority in the North had cont: ivt^l to reduce
the South, financially, to the condition of tributary
provinces, and drew an immense tribute from them.
Now not only is that tribute lost to the North, but it is
now burdened with the maintenance of a costly pauper
who has proved a great consumer of its shrunken le-
sources. The South has become a paralyzed limb, to a
by no means healthy body. And the chief indication of
vitality in this paralyzed limb is an occasional, violent
convulsion.

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THK UNITED STATES

But, it may be said, the United States have become a
great manufacturing country. Is not that a resource
that may yet maintain its prospojity?

The Federal government, by a most unnatural and un-
just fiscal policy which it has pursued for fifty years,
succeeded in building up an immense but forced system
of manufactures throughout the Eastern and Northern
States. The enterprising Yankee undertook to manu-
facture everything, even to the natural productions of
other countries. The moment he found that some people
abroad had such natural facilities that they could make
any particular article cheaper and better than he could,
he hastened to his paternal government, and got it to
handicap the foreigner so heavily that the Yankee alone
could reach the winning post, the home market of the
United States. Thirty, and forty, and fifty per cent
duties on foreign goods were long odds in his favour — but
not always enough. We believe the duty on foreign
silks is sixty per cent. For a time this system of tax-
ation served its purpose well. For although the Yankee
manufacturers could sell little or nothing in the world
abroad in competition with cheaper and better goods,
they had the monopoly of the home market, in most
articles, sustained by the immense amount, and the
artificially cheapened price of Southern produce, and by
the great demand in the South for manufactured goods;
and this made a profitable little commercial world of
itself.

Tiie great tribute paid by the South to the Northern
manufacturers on protected articles, the great revenue
it paid to the government in duties on foreign goods,

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115

(for after all the manufacturers failed to supply all the
country \vante<l) added to the immense amounts borrow-
ed abroad and expended in developing the resources of
the country, *,'ave to the North the appearance of vast
prosperity. This prosperity brought on a great rise in
wages, in the cost of materials, of the necessaries of life,
in the style of living. For everyone thought that he
was makiuif his fortune. Livincr in New York was
more costly than in London, twice as costly as in Paris.
Ostentatious people, becoming pinched in their incomes,
went to European capitals to economize.

But the country has lately waked up from its dream
of manufacturing and commercial prosperity to find it
only a dre im.

Its vast system of factories and work-shops, and com-
mercial agencies, and its net-work of rail-roads that
covered the country, have lost their best and greatest
customer, and the bounty they made him pay on their
industry. Their customer, the South, is worse than a
Vmnkrupt — he is a pauper, and it costs them money to
keep him. Under the changed condition of the country
they now fiml that all the outlay they have made, chiefly
of borrowed money, in manufacturing, conmiercial, and
transportation agencies, has been quite over-done; and
rival establishment are cutting each others throats in
their efforts to secure to theniselves the diminished and
embarrassed trade of an impoveiished and mutilated
confederation. The country is now actually losing
money on its investments in manufacturing establish-
ments and entei-prises that have run it deeply into debt.

It is curious to see how the signs of the times are

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116

THE UNITED STATES

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miscontrued by those prophets who pretend to know and
foiesee all things. The London Times and Pall Mall
Gazette are frightened at seeing certain cotton stuffs
from the U. 8. underselling even in Manchester, the
manufactures of that locality, In their eyes the Yankee
is bearding the British lion in his den. Here in (^anada
we recognise these cheap Yankee goods, sold below the
cost of making them, as bankr'int stock, 'slaughtered
goods' sent abroad to be sold for what ever they will
bring, because the sale of them in the U. S. w^ould beat
down the ju-ice of all similar goods, which already hang-
so heavy on the manufacturers' hands. These marvellous
cheap goods are the evidence of some bankruptcies, but
they foreshadow many more.

It is curious to trace the effects which the protective
system, the vast borrowings, the vast expenditures, and
the high cost of materials, and of living, have had on the
TJ. S. merchant marine. For a lonnf time the United
States w^ere a great ship-building country. Thirty years
ago, perhaps later, the merchant marine of the U. 8. was
the second in the world, and in tonnage fell not far short
of that of Great Britain. Now, even with its river
steamers included, it is a poor shrunken thing, and the
exports of the country go in foreign and safer bottoms
to the markets of the world. The United States have
lost their ship building, and their carrying trade, and all
the profits derived from them. Yet the governme'.it has
spent millions to bolster up lines of steamers; and some
of the ugliest of the numb.'rless frau<ls perpetrated on
the public treasury have been connected with these
efforts to revive the marine interest of the country.

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117

But the United States, it may be said, are still a
country of vast resources; they can rely on their de-
veloped and their undeveloped agi'icultural wealth. If
the South be permanently ruined, it is but a corner of
the countrv that is ruined. The aresit West, wide and
fertile, can ijcive employment to all the factories and
work -shops — to the great net-work of rail-roads that
connect every part of the country, to all the commercial
depots, and agencies scattered over it. It can repay all
that has been borrowed, and replace all that has been
lost.

Let us look into this »freat West. Throufjh the bless-
ing of a most favourable season last year, it harvested a
monstrous crop of grain. In the midst of the distress and
embarrassment of the whole country, men's spirits rallied
and revived at this prospect of plenty. But man is
never satisfied. One blessing only makes him long for
another, and all the wheat growers and wheat dealers,
who believe in a Ood, were praying for a general war in
Europe to raise the price of grain.

All trades have their technical phrases; and among the
giain dealers in the United States you will often hear of
the 'wheat centre' around which central point cluster
the largest productions of wheat. It will be worth one's
while to trace the migrations of this wheat-centre; for
it is not a stationary point. There was a time within this
century when the people of the six New England States
grew the wheat for their own bread. Now they could
not feed themselves with home grown wheat for a fort-
night. Since then New York was a great wheat grow-
ing State, and the wheat centre stood in it. Now its

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THE UNITED STATES

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wheat crop cannot feed its people for five months. After
that Pennsylvania was a great wheat grower, and the
w'leat centre was found there. Now its people can eat
up the wheat crop in ten months. Stepping for a
moment out of the line of the wdieat centre's migrations,
w^e will remark that as late as 1800 Virginia produced
twelve Lushels of wheat for every person in it. In 1870
it produced only six, and now probahly less. The wheat
centre for a time took its station in Ohio. Then it
moved into Indiana and Illinois, but is now somewhere
bel-wecn Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota. But from its
past histoiy we infer that it will not stop there long;
and as in its migrations it has always moved westward,
it must then take a long leap over to Oregon and Cali-
fornia. Let Geneval Hazen tell us the reason why.

General Ha/.en is an officer in the U, S. army, and
seems to have been nrach employed in the far West,per-
haps in topographical exploration of the country. A
year or two ago he published an interesting article, it
may have been an official report, of what he had seen
there. In it he tells us that there lies East of the Rocky
Mountains a country twelve hundred miles square,
(1,440,000 square miles, seven-sixteenths of the territory-
of the United States) which is a desert w^ith not five per
cent of improvable land. And General Hazen's account
is confirmed by others who know the country well-
The cold winter there may be no fatal objection to an}'
part of this country, but the heat and drought in sum-
mer would keep the soil for ever stei-ile, if nature had
not already made it so. It may afford some good pastur-
age during a short season — but even for that purpose it

UNMASKED.

119

%^.

is wortli little. For tlie measur.- oF the capabilities of a
pastoral country, is its power of feeding stock, not
(luring the most plentiful, but during the scarcest season
of the year. It is said to be a country of great mineral
wealth. But all the treasures buried beneath its strata,
wouM not tempt the wheat centre to linger one moment
on the soil-less surface that coveis them.

If New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia have been
worn out as wheat <j:r()win<j: regions; if theie be truth in
the assertion attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who lived
in Illinois and knew it well, that the wheat fields of
that once fertile State had sunk to an avera<;e of ei<jht
bushels per acre; if the wearing (nit of virgin soil by
successive eroppings, without rest or rotation, be the true
characteiistic of American farming, we may safely infer
that the great wheat crops of the West will not prove a
permanent resource to the country.

The i-estless wheat centre, setting out from the coast,
has already travelled twelve hundred miles from the
Atlantic, and would travel further if it could. If this
wdieat is grown for European consumption, it costs a
fjreat deal to get it to market. Of three bushels on
their way to market, two eat up the third and lose some-
thing of their own weight and bulk b.'fore they get
there; for wheat is a heavy and cumbrous article in com-
parison with its value, and soon eats up the price in
travelling expenses.

This was one of the great advantages enjoyed by the
cotton States, while there were cotton States, and while
the\' made a cotton crop worth talking about. Their
great staple, even when sold cheap, wa.s still of great

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THE UNITED STATES

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value in proportion to its weight. If the farmer in the
far west got ninety cents per bushel for his wh^ it, it was
worth to him at most but one cent and a half per pound-
The cotton planter quite as often, if not oftener, got
twelve cents a pound for his cotton. If the wheat and
cotton set out together on their travels in search of
a market, when the wheat had expended its whole first
cost in travelling expences, the cotton would have spent
only twelve and a half per cent. A great and remote
traffic must be sustained by more costly commodities
than food, and especially grain, one of the cheapest forms
of food.

If in 1860 the people of the United States, from a
praiseworthy wish to pay some small part of the money
they owed in Europe, had denied themselves the use of
wheaten bread, and, while living on potatoes, maize and
oatmeal, had sent all their wheat to market abroad, it
would not have netted, at the average price of wheat, as
much as the cotton crop of the Southern States in that
year, but would have fallen short of the cotton at least
ninety millions of dollars.

We do not know what the wheat crop may yield in
this the most favourable season in the United States
within twenty or thirty years. But after all the boast-
ing as to the wheat crops of the States — most people
will be sui*prised to learn that the little region of Eng-
]**nd, with but fifty thousand square miles (equal to one
?'.r'y -fourth part of the U. S.) produces not much less
'v>)>arv 1 -tif as much wheat as all the States did in 1870
a-nu more than half of their crop in 1860. If all the
jj ' i/ in the United States used no bread stuff but

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UNMASKF.I).

121

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wheat, so far from ('xportinf:f large (|iiantitios, they
would often have to import it, for only a good crop could
supply their wants.

One who is familiar with farm labour and farm pro-
duce in England, Ireland, Germany and France, would
not think the United States a very advantageous country
for farming. The chief advantage is the abundance of
land, and the consequent low price and rent paid for it.
But good land is not abundant. There are many draw-
backs to farminnf. The extremes of the seasons are one
of the chief. North of latitude 40, except in some limit-
ed regions, the ground is frozen har I and the plough
cannot enter it from J)ecember until April, and often
until May — so that all tillage is interrupted for five
months, during which much could be done to the land
on a farm in Western Europe. On the other hand the
summers are very hot, throughout the country, compared
with those of Europe, North of the Alps — and in conse-
quence, Noj'th America is by no means as good a grain
growing region as Western Europe.

The summer is everywhere too hot, and in the North
the winter too cold and long; wheat, oats, and barley,
after lying dormant for months, are hurried on by
sudden heat to premature maturity, with too few months
of growth to produce the full and heavy yield common
in more temperate climates. Every farmer knows that
the more months a crop continues progressing naturally
to maturity, the fuller the return it will make to his
labour. In America the small grains are hurried on by
the heat and dryness of the summer, to hardening before
they have attained all their plumpness and weight. A

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THE UNITED STATES

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bushel of grain, whoat, barley, and os2)ecially oats,
weij^hs far less in the U. 8, thaii in Great Britain, and
much fewer busliels are made to the acre.

The climate of three-fourths of th • U. S. is far better
suited to maize, the farinaceous gruin which nature
sowed there. It is now the common bread stuff of half
the country; and should the Northern States ever
become really populous it will rival the potato in feed-
inof the other half. America is not destined to be the
granary of Western Europe. It is probably as much so
now as it ever will be. There is much barren land, in
every part of the continent. The better soils have been
or are being rapidly exhausted by continuous cropping;
and little is done to restoie their fertility. Few lay
stress on feeding their land, that their land may feed
them. The ocean is both directly and indirectly the
great source of the more fertilizing manures; and on a
large and compact continent the bulk of the land lies
far beyond the reach of that source of supply.

Slave labour is supposed to have been always accom-
}>anied by a slovenly, vicious, and wasteful system of
agriculture. Yet the only instance in the United States,
known to us, in which an extensive remon has been
restored from exhaustion to renewed fertility, occurred in
a slave State. In 1820 the soil of the Eastern and
larger part of Virginia was so much exhausted by un-
skilful cropping, and especially by the cultivation of
tobacco, that there was a great and continued migration
Westward in search of new lands. But after some en-
terprising and skilful planters had adopted and zealous-
ly disseminated a judicious system of culture, manuring,

UNMASK KI).

128

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and rotation, it revived raj)idly, became a lar;L;e wheat
producing rc^jion, and in 18(10 was one of the most
thrivin*^ ui tlie furniint'' States.

It may be woith wliile to mention anotlier instance,
on a smaller scale, of an eftectual restoration or rather
creation of a fertile soil, also in a slave State. There are
a row of Hat sandy islands along the coast of South
Carolin I and Oeor<fia, many of them of considerable size.
The climate and soil are peculiarly fitted for the gr >wtli
of what is, or rather was known as sea-island cott >n,
that variety of the plant producing the finest and longest
fibre, and commanding a treble, ([uadi'uplc, and even
quintuple 'rice. But the light soil was quickly worn
out. These islands are separattM] from the miinland and
each other, not only by water courses — but a'so by salt
mud flats, covered with a thick growth of coai'se marsh
grass, (the Spurtina Qlnhra. we believe) and they are
covered at hi^rh tides with salt water. The cotton
planters gradually adopted the laborious and complicated
process of cutting, atv low tide, great quantities of this
marsh grass, and of the salt mud on which it grew,
spading it like peat or turf, then hauling it to their
fields, where it was pulverized and harrowed into the
soil, which was effectually renovated by this manure
laboriously rescued from the arms of the sea. But these
artificially fertilized islands are now barren of all but
weeds.

We are satisfied that it is only under peculiarly
favourable circumstances that effort is made to recuperate
the soil in the United States, Many things are there
adverse to farming, and even with cheap farms and

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lai'irc farms few men •'row ricli on them. Even in the
healthier parts of the I ^nit(Ml States the extremes of
climatr «li,seoura<^e, perliaps f()r])i»l that assiihious and
continuous field labour throu;^hout the year which marks
the fairn-lal>o\n(!r in Western Europe, In the United
States but a small ju'oportion of farm-labourers will en-
gage or can get engagements by the year. The natives
grow up averse to steady farm work, and can be scarcely
tempteil to it by high wages; and the farmer has to look
chiefly aujong the newly come Irish and (lermans to find
his hired man.

The farmer struggles against many obstacles to profit-
able farmin<r besides the seasons and the soil. The hisrh
wajres of labour and the unreliable character of the
labourer, the high price to which the protective system
has raised most of the supplies, materials and imple-
ments needed on the farm ; the burdensome taxes on land
and on improvements on it, by State, and county, and
township assessments sadly cut down his profits. We
have been told by farmers that these burdens often
amount to three or four per cent on the assessed value
of the land, and that the amount of that assessment is
much influenced by the consideration, whether the
assessors and assessed belong to the same or different
political parties.

In one branch of industry and skill the people of the
United States have made remarkable progress. No
where have the inventive faculties of the mechanician
been more earnestly and successfully tasked, and besides
their own inventions they have laid claim to many that
they never made. The circumstances of the country

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stininlatod this (levclopinont. Deinand for laltonr and
scarcity i»f labour are fatlitM* and mother to lahour-savinix
contrivances; and among these have ])ecn many agricul-
tural implements greatly exi)e(liting labour on the farm.
But as they almost always aim only at getting a crop
out of the land speedily and cheaply, and few or none at
the recuperation of the soil, they have hastened, not re-
tarded the impoverishment of that soil. In some of the
North Western States thousands (.f acres of rich prairie
land in one body, without tree or stump, root or stone,
lie rea<ly for the plough. Agricultural speculators
eagerly secured possessions of these tracts. In many
cases many thousand acriis formed but one farm — for
the absence of all materials foi- fencini;, made enclosures
too costly a process for small holdings. The capitalist
called to his aid all the most efficient implements and
machiner\' for deep ploughing, thorough hanowing,
drilling, sowing and covering. Wlien the crop ripened,
portal>le steam thrashers, travelling from one point to
another of this wide domain, thrashed (Jut the wheat,
leaving the straw to dry in the almost lainless summer,
and all its valuable elements to be sublimated and dis-
persed by the scorching sun and the sweeping winds of
the unsheltered prairie. We sec admiring paragraphs
published, connnenting on these gigantic agricultural
feats, which have extracted shii)-loads of wheat from a
single farm. But in a very few years the proprietors,
— we will not call them farmers — find that they have
exported not only their crops, but their farms. The land
is well nigh dead from exhaustion, and the bare site is
far remote from the means of manuring and recupera-

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tion. Fertile and productive refj^ions have become bar-
ren and desolate before now. And some of these farm-
ing merchants have become bankrupt even before their
farms were worn out.

In almost every civilized country most of the wealth
is represented by the land-holders, the rural proprietors.
Even where such property is widely distributed among
many, not a few examples of great wealth are found
among them. This class have the most fixed and per-
manent interest in the country. Much of the refinement,
cultivation and integrity in the country is found among
them — and they exercise great social and political in-
fluence. It is not so in the United States. It was so in
the older and long settled Southern States; but it is so
no longer.

The farmers furnish the productions on which many
classes of traders and speculators make, and often lose
immense fortunes, but the farmers seldom grow rich ex-
cept in a very small way. In the United States the
large land-holder finds no class of tenants, with skill,
capital, and trustworthy character, to take leases of
farms at rents remunerative to the owner. And if,
rather than let his land lie idle, he undertakes to farm
on a large scale, every one he employs makes all he can
out of him without scruple, for a large land-holder is
looked upon as a monopolist, and lawful prey; and he
generally ends by being ruined. The only available use
for a large landed property, is to speculate upon it, by
cutting it up into small allotments, and selling them out
at retail price, as the shop-keeper does with his stock in
trade.

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Ono of the chief natural resources of the United States
is undergoing rapid extinction. When North America
was first colonized few countries were better clad with
valuahle forest gi-owth than the Eastern half of the con-
tinent. Throughout the earlier history of the country
much of its wealth was derived from this source. The
amount of timber of all kinds seemed inexhaustible.
Ship-building, the preparation and exportation of timber,
and of what are known in commerce as naval stores, were
for a time the chief industries of the country.

But the forest is cut down, and where are the ships?
How few compared with what they once we»e! What
timber is left is of inferior quality, remote from water
courses, and will not repay the cost of bringing it to
market. The forest, the growth of centuries, can never
be replaced, and the want of it deteriorates the climate.
Already a considerable part of the United States is de-
pendent on Canada for timber; and we have good
assurance that this supply will not last long.

The rich men in the United States are not the pro-
prietors of the fields, meadows, and pastures, the broad
acres, the visible and tangible property of the country.
They do not much care for this kind of property. Its
annual j'^-ld is too moderate and comes in too slowly for
them. The rich men of the country, or the reputed rich,
are bankers, merchants, manufacturers, and above all,
successful gamesters in stock jobbing of all kinds, in gov-
ernment, and State, and municipal bonds, and railroad
corporation stocks, in government contracts got by
official favouritism for a high fee; and all these things
are of most fluctuating and uncertain value. Most of

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these millionaires have been lately raised into notice by
some lucky sj-eculation or peculation, and on a change of
luck may be never heard of again — like many a Croesus
who has lately disappeared in bankruptcy. But they
are the leading spirits of the day — the objects of envy
and admiration to that monstrous class, who are seeking
to make their fortunes by bold strokes in the feverous
and gambling markets of the United States.

The United States have been fo)' some years growing
less prosperous in their agriculture, their manufactures,
their commerce, their marine resources, and their forest
productions, than they ever have been for any prolonged
period; and we believe that their present condition can
be distinctly traced to growing and permanent causes.

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CHAPTER VIII.

Political and Social Condition of the United States.

The United States cover a vast region of country not
unblest in climate and soil, not wanting but rather
abounding in mineral wealth; and inhabited by a highly
capable population. Why should they not prosper?
Because evil ngencies, political and moral, aie, and long
have been making war upon their prosperity.

The people of those States which first formed the
Union were fortunate in inheritiuLr, with their Anglo-
Saxon blood, valuable political and social institutions
which) while kept pure and unperverted, protected their
rights and promoted their welfare. But they gradually
lost sight of the principles, on which political and social
life can be safely organizL'd, and gave themselves up to
the guidance of false maxims in government and soci-
ology, which have led them a long way towards moral
and material ruin.

We will specify some of those principles which they
have thrown away.

The colonies quarrelled with the mother country
because they were taxed by its parliament in which
they were not represented, 'No taxation without repre-
sentation!' This sounds like a safeguard to one's rights;
yet it is but a half truth, valueless and deceptive until
you add the suppressed half to it. 'No representation
without taxation!*

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Government is a necessary agency. Society cannot
do without it. But it is a costly and burdensome agent;
and moreover one whose powers have often been grossly
abused and perverted from their true objects. Yet its
powers must be entrusted to some person, or persons, or
class of persons. The only class of persons to whom the
ultimate control over the government can be entrusted
with reasonable hope of good results, is that which
furnishes the means of supporting the government, and
feels the burden of its costly maintenance. This class
are the tax-payers, the holders of visible, tangible prop-
erty, which cannot hide itself from taxation. This class
has a direct and obvious interest in watching the gov-
ernment and the officials who administer its powers — in
checking extravagance and enforcing economy and
honesty in government expenditure; for they furnish
the means. They have every motive for watching that
the operations of government are directed to the pro-
tection of the rights and the redress of the wrongs of in-
dividuals, and the safety of the community — and not
perverted to purposes for which it was not created. For
this class have not only personal and social rights, like
other people, but they possess vast acquired and vested
rights peculiarly apt to suffer from the neglect or abuses,
or perversion of government ; rights, on the protection and
security of which the welfare and civilization of the
country depend. This class may be very numerous, or
may consist of comparatively few, according to the cir-
cumstances of the particular country. But in every
civilized country it forms but a minority, and usually a
small minority of the people in it. Yet their right to be

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intrusted with the ultimate control over the jDfovernment
and its officials will not be hard to see when we have
considered two other suppositions. 1st, That of one man
being the imposer, collector, and expender of taxes. 2nd
That while the property-holders pay the taxes, those
who hold no property and pay no taxes, should impose
them. Do not say that tliis is an impossible case. But
it is certain to prove a ruinous arrangement. Tliese im-
posers of the taxes have no motive for enforcing on the
government economy and honesty in its expenditures.
They may become interested in its extravagance, its dis-
honesty, and in the perversion of its powers. Is not this
what has happened in the United States?

The individual States originally had in their political
organization this safe-guard against the extravagance,
dishonesty, and perversion of their governments. We
believe that in every one, certainly in nearly all of them
the franchise was limited to the freeholder, a basis of
political power wide enough to secure attention to the
protection of the personal and social rights of every
citizen, choice enough to secure that all who ultimately
controlled the government and its officials, should have
a direct interest in preserving that government from
corruption, and the perversion of its powers. Accord-
ingly these State governments were, for many years,
efficient without becoming burdensome or corrupt.

But the ultimate control of government and of its
officials is not now in the hands of those who have a
direct and obvious interest in the economical, honest, and
unperverted exercise of its powei's. That class has but
a very small voice in the matter, and no power to protect

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themselves or other people, except by bribing the multi-
tude of needy and mercenary voters, and paying exorbi-
tantly for their votes.

. By the theory of the government, in the States and in
the United States, all power is in the hands of the
majority of voters on the basis of universal manhood
suffrage ; and nothing but some forms of an effete politi-
cal organization, termed the ' Constitution of the United
States' stand between the sovereign majority and their
absolute despotism. The minority are nothing. This
sovereign majority consists chiefly of men who have no
direct and obvious interest in the honest and economical
administration of the powers of government. So far
from its burdens apparently falling on them, they feel a
direct and obvious interest in its expenditures being not
only liberal but extravagant. It is their aim that it
should multiply offices, undertake great public works,
give out great contracts, embark in every kind of under-
taking, assume every duty that can be forced into the
sphere of government operations, to swell its patronage
and multiply the paid dependants on its bounty. It is
their government, and ought to be their servant, bound
to do their work in securing to them prosperity in the
shape of good employment at high wages at least, if not
a fat office, or a profitable contract.

The vast majority of this sovereign people derive all
their political notions from the harangues of the dema-
gogues of the platform and tLi' press, men seeking their
favour and vote for office, or their support to some
measure in v/hich the orator has a direct but unseen
interest. The vast majority of the sovereign people have

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most confused and false notions as to Aviiat the best and
most powerfiil government can do, and cannot do for
those who Hve under it. In commenting on the conduct
of pultlic affairs there are many unwelcome facts to be
dealt with, many unpleasant truths to be told. But the
telling of unpleasant truths is not the way to win the
mass of voters. Those public men whose good sense,
foresight and honesty lead them to raise a warning voice
and utter unwelcome truth, to point out obstacles that
obstruct the people's wishes, or evil consequences that
will follow their wilful course — these men, one after
another are dropped out of public life. The more adroit
courtiers of the people, those 'flattering prophets who
prophesy smooth things, prophesy deceits;' who pander
to every passion, prejudice, and aniiuosity, and every ex-
travagant and groundless hope — nay the very jesters
and buffoons that divert the crowd, l)ecome the chosen
counsellors of the mob; and the mob is kinsf.

The lower the stratum of population on which you lay
the foundation of political power, the more mixed the in-
gredients of that stratum in race and charactei*, the more
completely you throw the government into the hands of
demagogues, and the more unscrupulous these dem-
at-oiiues become.

It is by no means yet ascertained that an unmixed
Anglo-Saxon population, whose hereditar}^ institutions
and customs have best tended to train them for it, can
mnintaiii a decent, orderly government on the principles
of democracv and universal sutJiai^e. It is certain that
all other races have signally faileil (unless the Swiss,
under their very peculiar circumstances, form an excep.

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tion, and we do not know this.) It is certain that when
you introduce citizens of inferior races you increase and
complicate the difficulties^. But to the original Anglo-
Saxon population of the United States have been added
millions ox foreigners, most of them of races that have
shown pect' 'ia la'^^titude for popular government,
several millions of negi'oes incurably ignorant and in-
capable by race, and probably far more future millions
of Chinese; for it would be treason against what has
become the fun ' . . ^r;! principle of the government to
attempt to excludi; i i. This system of sovereign
democracy verges close ii;^>'^.\ a reference of all measures

of legislation and f

Atliament chosen by the

loafers and tramps that ^"^v:^! -. • every part of the
country.

It has already come to this, that the sovereign popular
majority can never again be represented by any consider-
able number of decent and honest men. Men who
respect truth, fair dealing, and themselves, cannot go
through the training necessary to secure the favour and
support of the local constituency of a section of this
sovereign mob. And he, who has successfully gone
through that training, is not fit to be trusted by any
honest man, or in any honest transaction. The direct
effect of this basis of government is to fill all offices with
the most artful and unscrupulous demagogues. It is
only by a rare combination of chances, or by the influence
of very great abilities that an honest man can get into a
post of importance ; and then he is quite out of counte-
nance, on looking into the faces of his brother officials
around him.

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Previous to 1800 the Southern States undoubtciUy
exercised a conservative influence Wiiich checked the
growinL,^ corruption of men in office. Most of the South-
ern representatives were sent to Washington express!}^
to watch and expose and oppose the frauds and pecula-
tions of politicians and i)lace-nien. They formed an
opposition which, although it failed to prevent the
systematic robbery of the South by the government, yet
could check the operations of individual thieves in office
and of rinirs or combinations of them; and although
there was peculation and knavery in almost every branch
of the public service, it was on a comparatively small
scale, and not seldom exposed and punished.

But the overthrow and conquest of the South, swept
every Southern statesman and patriot from the halls of
Congress, and filled their places with Northern adven-
turers and Southern turn-coats, who could be bought up
with a round sum, or negro representatives who could
be bribed at less cost. Since then, frauds and plunder-
ing in high places have multiplied and grown to gigantic
stature. Millions, untold millions have been the prize —
for no one knows to what extent the ifovernment and the
country have been robbed. What a startling narrative
of rascality in high places, involving Senators and Re-
presentatives in Congress — and the Vice-President, is
furnished by the history of the 'Credit Mobilier' and
the sixty millions of government bonds lent to aid the
Pacific railroad; and by the purchase of the utterly
worthless territory of Alaska, and the difterence between
the millions the United States paid and what the
Russian government received. Need we refer to the

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Its

manifest corruption in procurinj^ subsidies to the Pacific
Steam Navi<ration Co. — to appointments to indian
agencies and to post sutlcrsliips — to tlie immunity from
prosecution of tli.' Whiskey ring? and to a multitude of
transactions of the same stamp? We will dwell for a
moment on one of them.

Perhaps the most skillful and profitable series of st(^ck
jobbing transactions the world ever witnessed emanated
from Washington, and from tln' treasury department
there.

Everybody knows that while the currency of the
United States for years has been National bank notes,
and the legal tender notes of the government, yet
nothing but gold is received at the custom-house in pay-
ment of duties. The paper money (lying promises to
pay) being plentiful, and gold being scarce, paper money
fell many per cent below gold ; or, in Yankee parlance,
gold rose many per cent above paper money. Their
phraseology avoided stating the simple and obvious truth
that it was the paper money that fell and fluctuated in
value, not the goM that ros(i in price. As to him, who
is gliding down the river on a swift boat, every object
on the shore seems to be hurrying up the stream, so
those, who had embarked themselves and their fortunes
on a fluctuating paper currency, said that gold was rising
in value, whenever they found themselves swept down-
ward by the ebb of the financial tide.

As every one that imported foreign goods needed gold
to pay the duties, there sprung up a market for gold
coin — and the m-eat but fluctuating demand for ixold to
pay duties, caused a corresponding fluctuation in the

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Value of pjiper money. Some times it took more papfv
money, and sometimes less, to buy a fixed sum in gold.
Tlie notorious gold room in Now York was the scene of
the excited and noisy transfer of golden millions daily;
and became the financial gamester's hell. For soon stock-
jobbing operations by individuals, and by conspiring
rings of advi'nturers, became far more the soni-ce of these
transactions than the commercial demand for gold.

The fifovernment was the <rreat receiver of L-old,
through the custom-house, and the great holder of gold;
fo)', keej)ing it, it paid all its current expenses in paper
money. When in want of paper money, the Sccivtary
of the Treasury would put some millions of gold in the
market, and sell it for the paper with which he paid tl:!'
current expenses of the government.

A judicious and patriotic treasurer would not miss th(,'
chance of doing a little financiering for the relief of a
needy government and depletiMl treasury, by with-liold-
ing the sales of gohl until, in Yankee parlance, tlie pi-ice
rose very high, that is until a great deal of depreciating-
paper money could be got for it. Then, by sud'ienlv
putting it into the market, the government might make
many a good bargain out of the buyers of goM. In order
however to do this eft'ectunlly it would l)e necessary to
have a private agent authorized to contract to deliver
gold at a price fixed by contract at an appointtnl day to
come. For the moment the govei-nment millions came
into the market, the price of gold was sure to tumble
down several per cent.

Thus the value of paper money, (In Yankee parlance,
the price of gold) was made, we will not say to oscillate,

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for oscillations are measured* by equable times, but to
fluctuate greatly, going up and tlown at most uncertain
p^'riods, which no body could foresee, except those who
were in the secret of the golden ebb and flow <jf the
treasury millions. The gold room at New York fur-
nished a most gigantic and exciting game of hazard, im-
mensely profitable to those who, by fee or favour, could
get a timely hint from Washington, the head-quarters
from which the game was played.

It is not to be suj)posed that the Secretary of the
Treasury ventured to take upon himself the whole re-
sponsibility of this game, which so seriously affected the
value of the whole curiency and indebtedness of the
country. He nmst have consulted the President and
his cabinet, and secured their assent, or they, not under-
standing it, would soon have put a stop to this game
which was played most briskly in 1870 and 1871, until in
the latter year ^old suddenly ran up to 1.40, and higher,
and brought on the ' Black Friday' which not only ruined
a crowd of the gamesters, but threatened to prove that
this government paper money might be worth nothing
after all.

After this catastrophe the treasury department felt
compelled to use the government gold as the means of
steadying the value of the paper currency; and as it has
been able to do this ever since, it is evident that it might
have done so before. But there seem to have been
other ends aimed at, to the attainment of which these
sudden fluctuations in the value of the currencv, and the
power of producing them, appear to have been essential.

The 'Black Friday' with other days of this series of

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Miiddon financial Hnctuations, ruino<l rrowils of jT^ainostors^
who became bankrupt for vast amounts. But as we
never heard that any liigh officials at Wasliington were
losers on these occasions, we infer that, either they took
no part in the game, or had the luck to be always on
the winning side. Much money was doubtless made by
well timed sales of o:overnment gold. But how much
accrued to the l»enefit of the treasury, and how nuich to
that of individuals, we know not, nor will ever know.

We will have occasion later to allude ta the official
robbery of almost every Southern State to the amount
of tens and twenties of millions each, bv the intrusive
governments forced upon them by the North. But it is
impossible to exhaust the list of official robberies, and
difficult to over-state the amount \

The pe.'ple of the United States have become so much
accustomed to fraud and robbery to the amount of
millions by high officials and prominent politicians, by
great bankers, merchants, manufacturers and others
controlling great capital and high influence, that nothing
of this kind now startles them. They have ceased to
look or ask foi* honesty in men high in place. They
have lost their perception of infamy; and, in politics at
least, quite as readily trust and sustain a rogue as an
honest man. Indeed they rather prefer the rogue, as
they hope to get something out of him, and his ill gotten

gams.

We will give an instance proving this. When Mr.
Charles O'Connor, sacrificing for a time his professional
inteiests to his patriotism, devoted himself to ferreting
out the official rascalities of the notorious 'Boss' Tweed

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and liis colleagues, by whicli they hail rolthed the city
(jf New York of twenty-tive inillion.s of dollars, six of
which millions at least went into the pocket of Twined
alone — after Mr. O'Connor had made these monstrous
rascalities, and especially Tweed's, manifest to all men,
hut hefore he coiild obtain his criminal conviction,
Tweed's constituents, the inub of New York, sent him
back as a senator in the State senate, to Albany, the
very scene of nuiny of his most remarkable .acts of cor-
rupticm. Could he even now wriggle himself out of the
clutches of the law, while yet retaining some of his
pUnider, the}' are (piite capable of sending him back
again to fill the senatorial chair as the representative
most worthy of his constituents,*

j-joss Twe 'd, we believe, was originally a chair- maker,
or chair painter, or of somo such trade, but got his title
of 'Boss' by becoming a master workman in a very
different line. IJut let no man imaijine that Boss Tweed
is an anomalous character, or has run an anomalous
career. He is simply a well marked type of a numerous,
and many of them still prosperous class of officials, to be
found in every considerable municipal corporation, in
every State government, in every department of the
U. S. government, in the house of Representatives and
the Senate, in the cabinet and tlie diphmiatic corps.
Many of them, like Boss Tweed, have come to grief.
But not a few, whose tortuous and dishonest careers are
well known, still letain popular favour and high place.

Nothing can be more false than the supposition that
under democratic institutions the people, or a majority
*Thi8 was written before Tweed's death in the penitentiary.

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of tlu; people, or any considerable number of them rule
and govern. Under any form of government whatever,
the exercise and administration of the offices and powers
of government, must fall into the hands, not of the
many, but of the few. The most that any consideiable
part of a nation can do, is to choose the official agents
by whom the country is governed. To do this
wisely and honestly is a very nice and difficult duty;
and the election of all officials by universal suffrage is
the certain way to turn all the duties and powers of
government into the hands of the most designiuLT, in-
tiiguing, and ui 'scrupulous demagogues — and of rings or
combinations of conspiring demagogues, to be used for
their own purposes, to the damage and possible ruin of
the country. Their statesmanship consists in hoodwink-
ing one part of the people, bribing another, and [)lunder-
ing the rest.

The United States are far too sparcely peophd a
country for them naturally to feel that pressure of pop-
ulation on the means of subsistence, which seems to be
almost unavoidable in old and populous countries. Yet
they have come in for more than their share of all these
evils. They have their crowds of work-people, periodi-
cally, and also at uncertain, unexpected occasions, thrown
out of employment, and on the verge of starvation ;
strikes and lock-outs on a giant scale; leading to con-
flicts between labour and capital, to conspiracies for
secret but wholesale murder, of which the Molly Mc-
Guires are but one example; and to the open conflicts of
armed thousands, amounting to civil war. In the law-
less outrages in the Pennylvania coal regions, and in the

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THE UNITED STATES

bloodshed and conflagrations growing out of the groat
strikes of railroad employes on scores of roads running
through many states, we have seen only the beginning,
not the end. In no country is there more open discon-
tent and secrt^t plotting, at war with private and social
rights and interests, than among both the labouring and
the idling classes in the United States.

It is true that this government by the people has for
years past been very successful in making the fortunes
of those who could obtain office under it, or exercise in-
fluence over those who are in office. It has made many
men rich — but it has increased, not diminished the
number of the poor, and deepened their poverty. No
country is more over-run with loafers and tramps, and
the surplus of the latter flow over the borders to the
great annoyance and damage of their Canadian neigh-
bours. The countrv is over-run with abandoned and
criminal characters of all kinds, many of whom have en-
joyed and availed themselves of good o[)portunities of
obtaining an education. For under this popular govern-
ment much has been expended in educating the people;
but little can be said of the moral effects of this educa-
tion. The literary training of the people serves chiefly
to enable them to enjoy the Newgate calendar narratives
of fresh rascalities and atrocities committed in various
parts of the country, and industriously disseminated by
the most licentious and libellous press that ever infested
any country. It serves to familiarize them with crime
and how to commit crimes. And of that portion of the
people who make a profession of religion the greater part
are chiefly interested in the fulminations, satires, and
slanders issuing from most licentious pulpits.

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and

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143

ft'

Government by the people, from the broad platform
of universal sufFracje as the soverek'n source of all law.
has utterly failed to fulfil its promise to elevate the
material and moral welfare of the country. It has
utterly degraded both.

Having said so much of the source of government and
law, we will now speak of the administration of the law
in the United States.

The people of these States inherited, with English law,
a wise usafje in the administration of the law. The
judicial office was made the object of ambition to the
best members of the legal profession. It was entrusted
to a lawyer of learning, ability, and unspotted reputa-
tion. His position was permanent. Durti bene gesseret
Nothing short of impeachment could remove him. He
stood on a pedestal, the representative embodiment of
impartial, passionless law — apart from professional in-
fluence, from partisan strife, from political alliances, from
the low and corrupting intrigues of election politics,
from busy, money-seeking pursuits; his time and
attention engrossed by the study of a high and broad
s^'stem of ethics, and in the application of its principles
to the disentangling and the just decision of those per-
petually occurring contests and litigations between man
and man, and of society with individuals. If he camo
but half honest to his official position, lie was surrounded
rluring his official career by all those influences which
most strongly tend to make a man wholly honest; and
more, a learned, wise, and independent judge, a safe-guard
and ?. treasure to the state.

That dignified and trustworthy magistrate, the judge

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144

THE UNITED STATES

dum bene gesseret, whose official life lasts until he resigns
his office, unless it can be proved on impeachment that
he has been guilty of acts that render him unworthy of
his post, has almost vanished from the horizon of the
United States. It is true that the remnant of that docu-
ment called 'The Constitution of the United States' yet
retains that clause which provides that 'judges of the
Federal courts shall hold office during good behaviour;
But the judges of these courts have long been selected
and put into office, not from consideration of their legal
attainments and integrity of character, but for their
usefulness and subserviency to the party in power.
Numberless facts prove this, but one of rather late
occurrence will suffice for an example.

The States, on entering into the Union, bound them-
selves and each other on this point: 'That no State
should make anything but gold and silver coin a tender
in payment of debts.' They had just had late and sad
experience of the ruinous and dishonest effects of paper
money. A very few years ago, however, the United
States government, being in urgent need of the means
of meeting its vast and corrupt expenditures. Congress
authorized the issue of a great amount of treasury-notes,
and made them a legal tender in payment of debts.
Most unexpectedly however to the goveinment, the
point coming up in a case in court, a majority consisting
of the older judges of tlie Supreme Court of th(3 U. S.
suddenly remembered the law, the Constitution, and
their own independent position, and decreed, five against
four, that Congress had no power to make paper money
a legal tender; that this was not among the powers

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5;!

granted by the States. The government seems however
to have had influence enough with the court to induce
it to suppress the publication of this decree for some
months; and, death meanwhile removing one of this
stubborn majority of the judges, a more subservient man
was put in his place. The question was then reconsider-
ed, and it was decided, five to four, that as the States
had denied to themselves the prerogative of cheating the
people with false money, therefore, they must have
granted that power to their common agent, the Federal
government. This is but one sample of the many per-
versions of constitutional provisions — and ot' the usurpa-
tion of powers by the U. S. government.

In nearly all, if not all the States, the judges are, now,
elected by the popular vote, or in some ca^es by the
legislative assembly. They hold office for short terms,
two or four years — receive very moderate salaries, and
are seldom lawyers of the better class, in learning,
ability, or character. They are in fact far more poli-
ticians than lawyers. Th(^y owe their places far more to
party afliliations than professional qualifications, and
must keep in with and serve their party without
scruple, or some other dominant party, if they seek to
retain their places when another election comes round.
We have at times seen one of the most inferior lawyers
in court, sitting on the bench as judge — and this is a
natural result of the mode of appointment. We believe
that in ordinary cases the decisions are in conformity
with the law and the evidence. But there are solid
grounds for the belief that, where large amounts and
great interests are at stake, which can aftbrd heavy

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146

THE UNITED STATES

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bribes, neither judges nor juries are often found incor-
ruptaWe; and that both decrees, and verdicts frequently
have been, and continue to be bought, perhaps in every
State in the Union. Justice is orrowinnr more and more
corrupt at the fountain head — and the longest purse
furnishes the best plea.

Marriage and a due regard to the obligations of
marriage are the foundation of society, of morals, and of
civilization. The people of these States inherited from
their English ancestors the true principles as to the
objects and obligations of the marriage bond. Eschew-
ing the loose morality of the Civil law which facilitated
divorce, and permitted him who had grown old in a
lewd career, to legitimate hii> neglected and grown up
bastards by and on marrying their loose-lived mother —
the English law taught that among the objects of
marriage the nurture of children took a leading place>
and that legitimacy consisted in being born in lawful
wed-lock. It moreover laid down the Christian rule as
to the bindinof nature of the marriaofe contract, allowinof
no divorce except for one offence against the marriage
vow. The true wisdom and sound morality of this law
as to the indissoluble obligation of marriage, and this
rigid limitation of divorce, is proved by the observed fact
that wherever it is most difficult to obtain a divorce
there will be fewest cases in which it is desirable, or
desired by married people. Where divorces are easily
obtained there are an ever increasinnf number of cases
in which there are good grounds for seeking it; and
moreover that it is often eagerly sought for insufficient
causes, and obtained by fraudulent and criminal means.

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147

There is no one test from which we can better infer the
yocial and moral condition of a peDple than that of the
difficulty or the ease with which divorce may be
obtained.

The laws of England and of its off-shoots in America
long discountenanced divorce from the bonds of matri-
mony to such a point, that a decree for divorce could
only be obtained in England by act of parliament, in
the colonies by act of Assembly. The great cost of
obtaining a decree by act of parliament (which was
always founded on a previous legal decision) led not
many years ago to the establishing of a special court for
• the decision of such cases. Divorces have become more
frequent in England, but are still rare, and only decreed
for very weighty causes. In one or two of the States
this necessity of a decree by legislative enactment was
retained even later than in England; and in one State
at least, but a few years ago, there had never been a
decree for divorce. And while the law stood thus, cases
calling for relief by divorce never were rarer in any
country.

But a sad change has taken place in the States, in the
frequency of divorces, and in the frequency of the cases
which would justify divorce even under more stringent
laws than those which now regulate them. The Federal
courts have not as yet we believe, usurped any jurisdic-
tion in matters so foreign to the purposes of their
creation, as marriage and divorce. But in almost every
State the old rules as to the indissoluble character of
the marriage bond have been fearfully relaxed. In many
of them divorces can be decreed for utterly insufficient

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causes. In some of them marriaije seems to be little
more binding than a partnership which may be termin-
ated by a three months notice by one of the partners.
Indeed, practically, notice of intention to sue for divorce
does not always seem to be necessary. Married parties
living in one State, have found themselves divorced
from a husband or wife by the decree of a court in
another State, in a suit which they never heard of until
the decree was pronounced — the \ isband or wife liaving
gone thither and resided in that State for a month or
two in order to give the court a colourable jurisdiction.
It is not unusual to see in some of the chief journals in
the United States, advertisements by legal firms,
announcing that they -pay especial attention to divorce
cases, and guarantee to procure decrees for divorce
speedily, cheaply, and secretly. Such an advertisement
itself should be made a felony.

We are far from having yet seen the full effect of this
relaxation of the marriage bond. The morals of a peo-
ple never rise above, often sink far below the morality
of their legislation. It is in vain that the more import-
ant Christian bodies, the church of Rome, the Anglican
church, and some others, set their faces against the re-
cognition ot these divorces. The tide of profligacy is too
strong for them.

We know of no case in which have been considered
the legal effects of loosening in one State the bond of a
marriage made fast in another. It seems to us that in
the latter State such a decree should be treated as a
nullity. But we fear that in many States their courts
would decide otherwise.

^mm

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149

Thus the people of these States inherited from their
English ancestors many valuable institutions. Among
tliese one, the guarded franchise, was the Lest safe-guard
against the corruption and abuse of political power, and*
preserved the possibility of reforming the government-
Another, the independent judge, secured the wise an I
inijmrtial administration of justice. A third maintained
the sanctity of marriage, the foundation stone of society
and civilization. But the people of these States have
ruthlessly thrown away these principles, as valueless-
and it is scarce worth while to inquire what more
they have thrown away with them.

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CHAPTER IX.

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II.

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The Vast Indebtedness of the Country — and its Effects.

Few people are aware of the immense amount owing
in the United States, by the Federal government, by the
State governments, by municipal corporations, by rail-
road, manufacturing, mining and other great companies,
which have long been offering tempting inducements for
the vesting of capital and lending of money. We can-
not ourselves approximate the amount; but we know
that it is so great, that the government debt, large as it
is, makes no large part of it. But we must not speak
too precisely of the debt of the government; for nobody
seems to know its exact amount, not even the Secretary
of the Treasury. For the statements respecting it, pub-
lished otticially, have been several times inconsistent
with each other. There has been for some years a
growing suspicion that the treasury department cannot
publish a true balance sheet if it would, and would not
if it could.

Few people know how much of all these borrowings,
investments, and expenditures in the United States have
little or no profitable or useful results to show for them.
Out of numberless examples we will refer to two, one of
a public, the other of a more private character.

Three or four years ago the yearly expenditure of the
United States on the army and navy, and other military
objects was more than $80,000,000, more than two thirds

unmaski:d.

151

that of Great Britain. But Great Britain has a navy
more powerful than that of any two, perhaps three
otlier powers, and one of the most powerful armii s in the
world. The United States ca]\ hardly be said to have
an army, some 22,000 oi- 23,000 troops ; and as to the
navy, it has not one single powerful iron-clad; and some
four ytars ago it was prevented from picking a ({uarrel
with Spain and stealing Cuba, simply by utter inability
to face the Spanish navy. When, after appropriating
380,000,000 a year to maintain the army and navy, the
United States government has so very little to show for
it, we can only conclude that official sharpers have inter-
cepted two thirds of the money, and applied it to their
own uses.

That net work of rail-roads, which covers the United
States, was built, not so much with the money of the
stock-holdei-s, as wath the two or three thousand millions
which they borrowed on the bonds of the companies and
the mortgages of the roads. Very few of these roads
have proved good investments. More than three-fourths
of them are but monumental mounds raised over the
money buried thero by the stock-holders. By the last
accounts we have seen there are already nine hundred
millions of these rail-road bonds on which the companies
cannot pay one cent of interest; and the amount is on
the increase. Is the principal of these debts too to b •
buried under the monumental mounds that stretch
across the country? This class of dqbts is only one,
although the greatest, of many classes of bankrupt enter-
prises, and of indebtedness ruinous alike to the debtor
and the creditor.

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\Vc miglit give nuinberloss proofs of the fall in the
value of property. A few will suffice: Much real estate
in New York has been lately sold for less than it was
niortgage<l for. Very lately a factory in 8aleni, Massa-
chusetts, costing $3,000,000, sold for $1(50,000— one
nineteenth of tin; original outlay. And still worse — we
see announced the sale, in New York on the 20th June,
187H, of 300,000 acres of land in McDowell County,
Western Virginia, at an average of one cent per acre.
This is probably mountain land, but is said to be well
wooded. I'eing on the borders of the Northern and
(Southern States, the price indicates a monstrous fall in
the value of property all over the country.

Passing over the greit banking, minini;-, and manufac-
turing enterprises, and the land speculations, involving
vast amounts, most of which have ended so disastrously
for the undertakers and their creditors, we will dwell
for a moment on a minor class of enterprises, which are
very characteristic of the Yankee.

The people of the United States, who have among
them, and know, very little of what people of the higher
class in other countries call 'society,' have yet a craving
for it, and, as a substitute, are fond of the publicity of
'hotel life.' This is the most vulgar taste imaginable;
but it serves their purpose. The amounts expended in
building monstrous hotels in the most costly styles, in
commereial cities, and at places of summer resort, is as-
tounding. And tiie rival amounts expended in furnish-
insf them in the most jxorueous manner, no less astound-
ing. They put to the blush most English noble-
men's mansions and many a princely palace. Most of

UNMASKED.

I5;i

these ainbitious temples of ineiccnfii y liospitality — have
of late proved uttiu- failures. Hotels costin;^ each one,
and even two ndllions, and the furniture costing; several
hundreds of thousands, after a year or two ha' e been
.sold for tun or twelve per cent on tlieir cost. Just at
this time the Yankee cannot atlord luxurious livinir, and
the ostentatious mimicry of refined society, atforded by
a fasliionable public house.

Having said some things jis to the debts of the people
of the United States, let us inijuire how tliey are to pay
their debts.

It is difficult to fix a limit to the amount a ijfovern-
ment may owe, and also to how much the people in the
country may owe, without causing serious finan -ial em-
barrassment — provided the creditors live in the countiy,
and make their expenditures an<l investments there.
But when the creditors live in another country, and have
got heartly sickened of making their investments in the
debtor country — that (dters the ensf. For instance: At
the end of the wars with France in 1815, Great Britain
owed eight hundreJ and forty millions, sterling. This
money was well spent. Better owe that amount th m be
over-run and torn to pieces as Prussia was in 1«S0G. But
this debt was monstrous; and the population of Great
Britain was not half, nor its resources one third of what
they are now. Yet from that day to this the govern-
ment has punctually paid 27 or 28 millions, sterling, of
yearly interest on the debt; and did .so without ditti-
culty, because the creditors lived in Great Britain, spent
their incomes and made their investments there. H
these millions had to be sent annually to creditors in

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154

THE LWrTKD STATKS

Germany or Franco, the payment Wijiild liave l»een a
heavy bunlen on tlie eountry. We douht vvliether it
would lont( liave continued to he paid at all.

The predicament not only of the United States govern-
ment, hut of the States, of the municipalities, and other
great corporations all ovei- the (Tuion is this: They
have borrowed freely, for tlieir credit was immense; they
have spent freely, and often extravagantly through
corrupt and unscrupulous officials, and they have very
little to set off against their debts. There are cities in
the Union that proclaim themselves bankrupt; There
are other bankru) .ities that do not proclaim the fact.
There are cities that reject their own ^^oupons in pay-
ment of city taxes; just as the U. S. government rejects
its own legal tender notes in payment of duties at the
custom-house. Now althoujjh the U. S. and the State
governments cannot be sued — cities are merely corpo-
rate bodies, and can be sued in theory of law; but it
seems that there is not law enough in the country to en-
force payment of debts by such debtors.

There is another class of debts of a peculiar character.
There is not one of the Southern States which does not
apparently owe many millions. Louisiana for instance
owes fifty millions. The State was not much in debt in
18G5 — at the end of the war owing but ten millions.
The other forty millions accrued under the intrusive
government, thrust on the State by the U. S. govern-
ment, after first disfranchising most of the chief men
and property holders in the State. This intrusive
government was maintained partly by the support of
the negro voters, but more by the intrigues of the so-

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UNMASK KD.

155

called State officials with those in ])ower at Washington,
and V)y the presence of tlu; U. S. nulitary force; hut for
the presence of wliich this revolutionized government
would not have lasted one day. The policy of this in-
trusive government was confiscation by taxation. This
was enjoined them by their allies at the North. The
legislature consisted largely of negroes whose votes were
easily and cheaply bought, and it represented no prop-
erty — for most of the holders of property had been dis-
franchised. The taxation was raised to eijxht or ten fold
that of former times. But this did not satisfy these
hari)ies in office, chiefly Northern men. With the
sanction of thcii bribed legislature they issued state
bonds bv millions and tens of millions, and sold them in
the New York money market at 20, 40, and 50 per cent
discount. Forty millions of the Louisiana state bonds
represent, not the extravagance, but the bribery and
direct stealings of the intrusive officials whom the U. S.
government put upon the State and long helped to
maintain there, in order to avail itself of the negro vote-
This picture of the condition of Louisiana is applica-
ble to that of most of the Southern States. But in spite
of all the efforts to exasperate the negroes, and band
them together, in opposition to the white people, the
' .tter have begun to regain their influence and control
)ver the State governments — and most of the late
)fficials have found it convenient to avoid the investiga-
tion of their doings by leaving the South.

The people of Louisiana and of the other Southern
States ould only be doing themselves justice by spung-
ing ou very dollar of debt accruing since 18G5 — that

150

THE UNIT EI) STATES

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is, on an avoage, seven-eights of what they nominally
owe. They will find it difficult to pay what they
justly owe.

The condition of the Southern States i-enders this re-
pudiation certain, and the sooner it comes the better.

We have said that t]ie airricultural industry^ of the
South is paralyzed, and its productions diminishing,
althought not as fast as they formerly increased. We
have said that the neofroes, no lonijer in habitual inter-
course with, and under the control of a superior race, are
dwindlin<>f in number, and fallinnf back from civilization
and Christianity, into savagedom. Remembering that
civilization and industry walk hand in hand, what can
we anticipate for the indolent and improvident negro?
How unreliable is free negro labour, is proved by the
fact that the sugar planters of Jamaica, Demerara, and
elsewhere, although surrounded by swarms of idle and
needy negroes, go to the expense of contracting for, and
importing Coolies from the other side of tlie world, to
labour on their plantations. Why is this? Because
agriculture, depending on the seasons, requires labour
that can be relied on. The neofro is more able bodied
than the Coolie, and more at home under the tropical
sun. But by physical constitution he is a drone, and
mentally, little capable of keeping to a contract. A
careless worker at best, he is most apt to absent himself
when most wanted, as in seed time and harvest — when
every day lost, hazards the returns of the toil and out-
lay of the whole year. The Coolies, as a race are steady
and skilful labourers; while with some exceptions, the
negroes both in Africa and elsewhere, have seldom prac-
tised any but an enforced industry.

Ill a

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157

But we have said little, and will here take occasion
to say some things as to the condition and feelings of
the white people, the true people of the Southern
States.

They are fearfully impoverished. The rich have he-
come poor, and the poor, with few exceptions have be-
come poorer. One effect of this poverty is that the
young are growing up, or have gi-own up w4th few of
those advantages of education which their parents en-
joyed. Higher education requires money and leisure,
and the present generation have neither. Most of the
better class of schools have died out from starvation.
The colleges, such as survive, dwindle for want of patron-
age, and of funds to maintain competent instructois,
always difficult to find. Many of the more able and
learned clergy have been driven by want to seek livings
in other parts of the Union, not readily found there.
Numbers of chuiches, especially in country neighbour-
hoods, are closed from utter inability to supi)ort a
pastor. The military schools, of which there were form-
erly one or more in each State, were imperiously closed
by the Federal government. The consequence is that,
in all the attributes of higher education and civilization,
a very inferior generation is taking the place of that
which preceded it. It took several generations to raise
society in the South to the position it had reached, and
which was highly progressive. It will require but one
to brins: it down to a very low level. Nothincr has con-
tributed more to the rapid fall of tone and feeling, tlian
the fact that when the South sprang to arms, to defend
itself against its assailants and invaders, the educated

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mere forgeries by the chief officers of the State. We do
not remember the amount of the whole of these issues;
but we believe, although these sums sound fabulous, that
the Georgia bonds amounted to fifty millions; those of
Louisiana to forty millions; South Carolina, thirty-four
million": Alabama, thirty-three millions; North Caro-
lina, twenty-five millions; the very poor State of
Florida, fifteen millions.

In order to give a sort of sanction and security to
their spoils, these official robbers, in some of the States*
called in all the bonds or certificates of indebtedness,
held by creditors of the State for money justly and long
due — and compelled them, under the threat of receiving
nothing, to exchange their old bonds for equal amounts
in the new bonds lately issued; the object being to ren-
der the honest and the fraudulent debts undistinofuish-
able from each other.

Now that the true people of the Southern States are
regaining the control of their own State governments in
spite of the machinations of their Northern enemies —
they have two financial duties to fulfil. One is to look
back for proofs as to who the real creditors of the State
were, and to what amount; and the second is, to repudi-
ate every State bond that has been issued since 18G5.
These are merely the evidences of the frauds perpetrat-
ed on them by their enemies. When they have dune
themselves that justice we will hear no more of nearly
three hundred millions of fraudulent State bonds.

Some foolish people will object that this will destroy
the credit of these States. But that will prove a bless-
ing. Their credit has been a curse to them, being the

UNMASKED.

1G3

chief moans by which their enemies phindeied them.

But nothing is more contagious than repudiation. It
will become epidemic, as catching as small-pox among
an unvaccinated crowd. What the Southern States can
do honestly, and will be great fools not to do, will be
^ agerly imitated as the means of getting rid of honest
debts. And who can say how many thousand millions
are owed abroad, exactly where it is most difficult to pay
them? It is very inconvenient to the U. S. m)vernment,
the greatest debtor in the country, to pay one hundred
and twenty millions of interest yearly; and most of this
goes out of the country. Many of the Northern Sfates
owe large amounts. Many cities are deeply in debt.
Nevv^ York owes at least one h- ndred and thirty
millions, Philadelphia ninety millions, and so on. A
multitude of corporations, besides the municipal, owe
many millions each. Who knows how much of all this
is due to foreign creditors? We do not. But much as
the people of the United States boast of the immensity
and value of their wheat crops, we doubt whether, on an
average year, the whole of it would pay the interest on
their foreign debt.

In their day of prosperity both the government and
people made the most of their credit by running bound-
lessly into debt on the faith of resources, which have
failed or are fast failing them. They have lost the pro-
ductions of their tributary Southern provinces, where
the crops at the best barely rei)ay the cost of growing
them. They have lost the profits of their manufactui*-
ing investments, based on their command of the trade
and tribute of these provinces. They have sunk a vast

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robbers, who have plundered the Southern States for the
last twelve years, they cannot fail to recognise the emis-
saries of that whole people who have been plundering
and insulting, and striving to degrade them for fifty
years. As to any part they can take in the struggles
for power in the Union, it is merely choosing which
party they shall be robbed by, for this systematic
robbery of the agricultural South continues in full force.
With his experience of their character and conduct, the
only natural and just sentiment a right thinking South-
ern man can cultivate towards the mass of people, with
vrhich his State was formerly unhappily confederated,
and to which it is now more unhappily subjected, is a
sound, wholesome feeling of detestation. He can only
lose this feeling by the perversion of his moral sense, by
losing his perception of the distinction between truth
and falsehood, between right and wrong. If he be vin-
dicative as well as conscientious, he may find some con-
solation on seeinj; that in brino^in^ down an avalanche
on the South, his enemies have covered themselves with
the same mass of ruin.

The people of the Southern Statvs have at times lately
shown an animosity at least partially misdirected, the
result of the natural antipathy between different races.
Many of them have exhibited more bitterness against
the negroes, who have been, for all political purposes^
mere tools in the hands of others, th i auainst the true
enemies of the South. It is true that the insolence and
outrages of the negroes, when stirred up and spurred on
by agents who cautiously kept themselves in the back-
ground — have been most exasperating. But nothing can

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161

justify that animositj^ against the negroes, if it be not
backed by a deeper animosity against the people of the
Northern States.

It would be strange and unnatural if the people of the
South silently and quietly acquiesed in the domination
of the Government, for any other reason than that they
see no prospect of getting rid of that domination. They
are still systematically robbed, but their poverty yields
little plunder.

Havini? said thus much of what the feelincrs of the
people of the Southern States are, and ought to be — we
will return to their financial condition.

Most of the States owed some debt before the war.
But the heaviest was small compared with the resources
of the State at that time. These debts are still justly
due, but it will task these now impoverished States to
pay them. Some of these States incurred further debts
durins: the war and for its maintenance. But the
United States government compelled them to repudiate
these obligations. It taught tliem a lesson in repudia-
tion. Yet these were honest debts binding on the con-
science of the States.

When the State governments were overthrown and re-
modelled according to orders from Washington, the
Northern men and Southern turn-coats into whose
hands place and power fell, availing themselves of the
aid of the negro majorities in the State legislatures,
issued from time to time larjxe amounts of State bonds,
as the means of bribing the legislature, but yet more of
making their ow^n fortunes. Many of these bonds had
not even the sanction of a bribed legislature, but were

IM'

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THE UNITED STATES

;<• "»'■

clasios were naturally most awake to the danger, and
most alive to the duty of promptly defending their
country. The ranks of the volunteer army were largely,
perhaps chiefly filled by the young men of the best, and
best educated classes, those that more often furnish the
oflicers than the privates of an army. The greater part
of this class of volunteers fell in the four years war,
many of them as ofiicjrs, but many still in the ranks.
There are few large and well known family connections
in the South which cannot count up several of its most
valued scions thus lost to them; and many a family
circle is left without a male heir. The better part of the
high spirit, of the mental culture, of the noble aspirations
in the South was prematurely cut off — thus happier than
the part that survived it.

But changed and fallen as the South is, it cannot yet
have forgotten the position it once occupied, or what
and who they were that reduced it to its present con-
dition. It is true that there are souie men, once the fore-
most and loudest among the patriots of the Southern
States, and some of whom had even distinguished them-
selves in the Confederate service, who now render them-
selves conspicuous by their eager efforts to conciliate
their old enemies. These men beloncr to that class
whose souls revolt at having been caught on the losing
side of a conflict. They feel an irresistible craving for
office and prominent position, and these things are now
in the gift of the enemies of their country. To satisfy
this craving they are eager to fraternize with the
enemy. They not long since thoroughly detested the
United States flag as the symbol of a usurping tyranny*

->>

UNMASKED

159

now

xtisfy
the
the

Now they feel a reviving affection for the oM stars and
stripes. They seek occasions to display it ostentatiously
and to parade under its folds. The ranks of the old
volunteer corps, reduced to skeletons in the war, they re-
fill with new recruits, and exchange military visits with
similar bodies in Northern cities, feast with them, and
pledge themselves to patriotic union and personal friend-
ships, disgraceful if false, more disgraceful if true. They
escort Yankee orators on their tours throufjh the con-
quered South, and listen to and applaud their advice to,
and comments upon, the people of the conquered country.
They lackey the heels of a prominent enemy of their
State and country, assiduously seeking his favour and
patronage, because he is the successful usurper of what is
itself a usurpation, having stolen the chief magistracy of
a government, the existence of which is robbery and
tyranny, and ruin to the Southern States. After the
disastrous issue of the war in their defence, these ai'e
the men. whose restless vanity and self-seeking for office
and favour thrust them forward as the healers and
patchers up of the breach between the two parts of the
'Union.'

But surely we misjudge the South if we interpret the
silent many by the talking few. It is not thirteen years
since the people of the Southern States were engaged in
a war in defence of all that was dear to them. Those
who can think and feel, cannot doubt, to day, that the
cause in which they took arms was quite as just as they
imagined it be in 1801. All the consequences that have
followed the failure of the 'Lost cause' make the justice
of that cause more manifest. In the official thieves and

,lv

IU4

THE UNITED STATES

■■;.:< ♦.

amount in a net-work of rail-roads nil over tlie couiitrv,
wliich barely yield the cost of miming theui. They
have lost their once profitable ship-building, and their
carrying tradt;. They have laid waste their forests, and
lost their timber trade. They have exterminated the
wild animals of the country, from the buffalo to the
beaver, and have lost their fur and peltry tiade. They
have exhausted the virgin soil of the country, and are
making half crops from worn out lands. They have
turned the fertility of the country into money, and have
now neither the money nor the fertility. They h»ve
borrowed, traded, built, invested and spent, as if they
were very rich; and are just beginning to find out that
they are very poor.

The inventive Yankee has lately added a new term to
commercial and financial phraseology; but not before he
had urgent need of it. It is that ominous word 'Shrink-
age.' They now find frequent occasion to use it. With
them now everything is shrinking. Until lately every
one of them has been revelling in the hope of making
his fortune by some stroke of genius or luck. What-
ever he got hold of he exaggerated its value, even to
himself, and yet more to other people. He spent money
and incurred debt on it, and looked for great profit from
it. He was continually buying, selling, borrowing-
money, and lending credit, until gradually he finds that
his promising investments are making very poor returns,
and his profits are turned into losses. Everything in his
hands, stocks of all kinds, banking, rail-road, manufac-
turing, mining, and lands both for building and farming
— all his speculations shrink, and shrivel, and wither up.

UNMASK KO.

165

iP'

unveiling' the vast amount of folly and rascality which
has been at work ))ehin(l them. Everything of theirs
has shrunken but their indebtedness.

But they do not see how permanent this shrinkage is.
Sanguine people in the United States look upon the
present financial embarrassment and industrial distress
as a crisis caused by over-trading and the abuse of credit
in its various forms, especially that of credit money,
paper promises to pay coin. This they think has caused
a disturbance in the distribution, for a time interrupting
the production, of all that makes wealtli. Like olher
such ciises, they think, it will soon pass away.

But in those crises the causes were temporary, and the
effect temporary. Now the causes are permanent, and
the effect will be permanent. The means of production
are permanently diminished, and further diminution
goes on. The fertility of the South is as unavailaV)le for
profitable production as if its soil had l)een sti-icken
with barrenness. All the vast outlay of the North in
order to avail itself of the production and the market of
the South and the tribute it drew from thence, is
utterly thrown away. The Southerner was their best
customer once, but he is bankrupt now and in gaol.
His assets do not pay the whole cost of keeping him
there. When the rest of the Union come to look into
their owm resources at home, those from field and
forest, from manufactures, commerce and tlie merchant
marine, they are found to be wasting away from year to
year. As the population of the United States grows,
the more exhausted and bare and stubborn will thev^
find the regions out of which they must draw the means

h w..

.,■ }*

: 5 ir.

' I,

.•■■ 'l

16C

THE UNITED STATES

of living. A Chinese industry and economy must revj-
lutionize their habits of life.

Of the immense indebtedness of the government and
people of the United States, more than half is due to
foreigners. It is peculiarly difficult to pay foreign debts.
Perhaps that is not the worst point of view for the cred-
itor. There is very little desire to pay them. There is
a strong prejudice everywhere against absentee pro-
prietors. And that is exactly the position the foreign
creditors hold. To pay them their rent the United
States must every year export at least two hundred
millions worth more than they import. Yet there is a
school of economists who absurdly say that the balance
of trade is in favour of a country — when it exports
more than it imports.

But the United States government has educated the
people not to pay debts when they become burdensome;
and they have learned their lesson thoroughly. We will
give one proof of this.

The States, when they formed the Union, were well
aware of the mischief produced by liaving ditierent laws
on the subject of bankruptcy in each of the thirteen
States so closely allied in commerce as well as politics.
So one of the powers tbey delegated to the Congress of
the U. S. was 'To establish uniform laws on the subject
of bankruptcy throughout the United States' Now the
conceptions as to what bankrupt laws were, in the minds
of the State delegations which drew up and executed
that treaty called 'the Constitution of the U. S.' were
derived from British legislation. Every lawyer knows
that the chief object of the British bankrupt laws, and

UNMASKED.

107

of those of other European nations, was to protect
honest creditors against fraudulent debtors; and that
the bankrupt laws applied only to persons in trade. The
debtor dof.^ not seek the protection of the bankrupt
law; but the creditor does.

But by the legerdemain of the U. S. Congress it became
the debtor of every kind, not traders only, who took
advantage of the law, while the creditors sought to keep
him out of bankruptcy. The intention of that clause in
the Constitution was that Congress should provide one
permanent statute of bankruptcy, to be enforced in all
the States and in the State courts. Congress did some-
thing very different. For not a few years it provi<Jed
no bankrupt law at all. But on the first great financial
crisis, such as once or twice in a generation seems to h(*-
fall every commercial country, Congress was beseig<'d
by all the rash and wild speculators and reckless
runners into debt, who clamoured for a bankrupt law
for their relief. The prayer was granted. It may well
be supposed that a bankrupt law passed in this spirit
made very impei'fect provision for guarding the credit-
ors from the grossest frauds. When all the entei-prising
but luckless speculators of that day had been relieved
of their burdens, in order that they might start, lighten-
ed of all incumbrance, in a new pursuit ot vast and
speedy gains, the bankrupt law was repealed; and not
until a new financial crisis, and fresh clamours from
ruined gamesters called for it, was another bankrupt
law provided for their relief. The United States have
had several of these temporaiy bankrupt acts — and have
at times been for years without any, until a new finan-

♦* ♦

..,., 4J

i. ■ ¥.'■,- ^

1()S

THK UNITKD STATES

cial crisis called for one. In trutli, they were not bona
fide bankrupt la\vs — but an occasional provision made
for the wiping out of debt. Tlie peojle have been
thoroughly ecUieated on this point.

But as to the matter of how to avoid fulfilliuff tlieir
engagements, and liow to circumvent tho.se who deal
with tliem, tlie di[)loinatie dealings of their own govern-
ment afford them many valuaVjli! lessons.

We have not time to refer to more than one or two of
these many achievements in negotiation. While the
United States has given no indemnification or even
apology for, or security against such national outrages as
the Fenian expeditions, planned, organized, and openly
set on foot in the U. S., and which the government
made no eainest effort to prevent, and by which the
British Dominion of Canada was invaded by armed and
organized forces marching out of the U. S. and which
had to be diiven back by Canadian volunteers and
British soldiers — while the sympathisers in the U. 8.
with the Cubans, in arms against the Spanish govern-
ment, were fitting out in the ports of the U. »S. armed
expeditions in aid of the Cuban rebels — at this very
time the U. S. government had the assurance to demand
of the British government indemnification for the dam-
age done to the commerce of the U. S. by certain con-
federate cruisers, the Alabama and others, on the ground
that these steamers had been bought in England — and
their annaments bad also been procured there. The
Confederate agents had indeed made these two descrip-
tions of purchases separately, and then skilfully brought
them together at sea, oi* in foreign ports. Now British

UNMASKED.

Hi!)

s]iip-]»uiI<lci-8 have been constantly sellin*,' ships to
foi-ei^n «^oV(Mnnit'nt.s and indiviihials.and nianufacturors
of arms of all sorts carryini' onasiniihir trath'. As lin;'
as armed vessels prepared for war, and ()r<^ani/ed
military expeditions, do not sail from British ports, the
government is not responsible for the ultimate use of
these warlike ai)pliances.

The strange part of this affair is that the Yankees
were successful in making good their claim for <lamages.
They induced the British government, in a (piaker-like
spirit, to refer the question to arbitration, and they
mani{)ulated the arbitrators so skilfully that they
adjudged to them sixteen millions of dollars damages;
and when they carried the money home they found out
that the real damage thi-ir merchants and ship-owners
had suffered amounted to only half tliat sum. What
sort of inducement had they used to lead the arbitrators
to adjudge double the amount?

Wliat we cannot understand is how any British min-
istry, without liaving demanded indemnification for
such notorious and insulting outrages as the Fenian in-
vasions of Canada, openly gotten up in the United
States, and without exacting security against their re-
currence, should have listened for one moment to so
flimsy a claim as that for the damage done by the Con-
federate cruisers.

It can only be accounted for by the peculiarity of Mr.
Oladstonc's statesnianship, which consists in yielding up
a little of the rights of his friends, in order to pacify and
conciliate his enemies — be they Fenian Irish, interlojj-
ing Yankees, or bullying Germans.

WW'

170

THE UNITED STATES

lif

.' »»/

It is just in this spirit that Mr. Ohidstone's colleague
for foreign affairs, Lord Granville, dealt with
Bisrnark's insolent and bullying complaint, that the
British manufacturers were selling arms and munitions
of war to the French government, with which German v
was at war; doing exactly the same thing that the
German government permits the great Krupp cannon
foundry to do: to supply hundreds of heavy rifle cannon
to Russia, which is at war with Turkey, Germany
being at peace with both countries.

The diplomatic Lord Granville did not reply, that,
Groat Britain being at peace with France, British man-
ufacturers had a ri';ht to sell to France whatev'.-r France
wanted. That if chis supplying France with British
made arms embarrassed the German government, it had
only to blockade the French ports in accordance with
the law of nations. Until that was done the British
government would see that British trade was not inter-
fered with by any foreign power.

The diplomatic secretary returned no such manly
answer. It was not in him. But ho bowed, and polish-
ed one palm against the other, and apologized and ex-
plained, and protested that Great Britain beamed with
good will towards Germany, and begged leave to assure
the German chancellor that he felt for him the most dis-
tin<;uished consideration.

Wj must go at least as far back in English history as
the reign of Charles the 2nd., to find so cringing a min-
istry, so rei dy to sacrifice the honour, interest, and
safety of their country, to keep themselves in power.
What chance had such statesmen with the

cunnmg

UNMASKED.

171

Yankee, who had impressed them with the conviction
that he was a great power, and who knew^ their dread of
war, and their readiness to pay Dane-gelt to buy their
peace? Had the United States been some petty state
tliey would have treated the claim for damage from the
Confederate cruisers with contempt. Little did they
know the true condition of the United States, and their
inability to wage war with anybody. They had just
sneaked out of a war with Spain, from whom they wish-
ed to steal Cuba. The United States have no real navy,
although they pay for one; not even one powerful ship.
A few British iron clads could seal up their ports, and
let them fume aAv^ay their rage under blockade. The
United States cannot now wage war even with so feeble
a powei as Mexico. They cannot raise the money
necessary to carry it on. To every million expended in
efficient preparation and operations, a margin of two
millions and more nmst be allowed for peculation, waste,
and stealage.

Another instance at home, will show the peddling
littleness, as well as the fraudulent nature of Yankee
diplomacy. Within five years or so, the government
made a treaty with a tribe of Indians, by which the
tribe had allotted to them as their reserve, that is their
permanent territory, a region embracing the Black Hills
in Dakota, and some of the surrounding country. This
region was wretchedly poor, and nobody wanted it.
But the indians, beinir in the power of the government,
accepted the treaty, taking what they could get. But,
a year or two after, it w^as rumoured that rich veins of
gold had been found in the Black Hills. At once

'S:]

'-4- f

■k1

b h4

172

THE UNITED STATES

y ' ' '.

adventurers of the mc^st reckless character becfan to
flock thither. The goveriniient found that the lands
were too valuable to be left in the hands of the Indians,
and at once set about upsetting its o A^n treaty; and the
indian chiefs were summoned to Washington to make a
new one. We need not tell our readers that the Indians
lost the Black Hills. There is a good deal of obscurity
in these negotiations, of which we get only the Yankee ac-
count. But the terms in which they report the events
in their indian wars betray their mode of dealing with
the indian. When some hero like General (lister rides
with his dragoons into an encampment of a hundred
indian lodges, and, the warriors being all away hunting,
he massacres four or five hundred squaws and children —
that is a glorious victory ! When the same hero rides
into another indian village, but there happen to be at
hand a thousand or twelve hundred lodo-es which he
did not see, and all the warriors being at home, fall
upon him, and cut oft' his command to the last man,
the whole Yankee country raise a howl at this ' horrid
massacre !' They have so perverted the use of language
that thev have lost the sense of truth.

We have not time to quote further examples of their
diplomacy. We have heard ot Punic faith, we know
something of Russian diplomacy, we are familiar with
Napoleonic negotiations, both ' par nioi ef vion onclcj
we have seen something of Bismarck policy ; but for
solid, downright political swindling, both at home and
abroad, wt.- back the Yankee against the field. He is
fully educated up to his long-established point of
honour : to circumvent ev^erybody, and not tolerate the

ElSwr-

luage

their
:noW
Avith
nde'
-J for
e anil
3e is
lit of
e the

UNMASKED.

173

disgrace of being himself taken in. As a sample of their
dealings, it is not too soon to refer to the five and a half
millions adjudged to Canada by the joint commission on
the fisheries question — money which the Canadians are
enjoying in anticipation ; while the Yankees are rack-
ing their brains for excuses for not paying it. But the
Gladstone ministry being no longer in power, it may be
hazardous to refuse to pay the money due.

One of the latest and greatest political frauds ever
perpetrated in the United States is the late Presidential
election. It is peculiar in this, that it was high treason
against their lord and master, the sovereign majority,
to whom they had hitherto been faithful. Even if it
CO . I of the veriest mob, it was, until now, sure of

th«.h nJ'egiance.

Two parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have
for years divided the people of the United States. The
foreigner should be warned that these party names
afibrd no indication oi' their principles, if they have anv.
Nor do we mean to imply that one party is more honest
than the other. But the Democrats, havinnr been for
years out of ofiice, have been long practising, as to
official duties and public money, and enforced honesty.
But they were heai-tily tired of being robbed, while
they got no .share of the plunder.

Some years ago a number of prominent people, in the
city of New York, whose pockets were drained )jy city
taxation, combined to force an investigation, by process
of law, into the monstious frauds and lascalities prac-
tised on the city treasury; and they induced Mr. Charles
O'Connor to become their chief counsel and asrent in the

'is*'

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1- M.

174

THE UNITED STATES

matter. Wc liave before alluded to Mr. O'Connor's
perseverance and partial success, and the exposure of
Boss Tweed, as the New York mob loved to call him,
and that of his colleagues. Now Tweed was a Demo-
crat, who played into the hands of the Republicans.

This partial success at reform strengthening the hands
of the Democratic party in the State, they with much
difficulty procured the election of Mr. Tilden as governor
of New York, We know nothing of Mr. Tilden except
that he is a great lawyer, is believed to be an honest
man, and not much given to politics. He was made
governor for a special purpose.

While Boss Tweed and his colleagues were plundering

the city treasury to the amount of twenty-five millions

or so, another ring were plundering the State treasury

to an unknown amount. The State had spent apon the

crreat Erie canal a great many more millions than the

canal will ever pay back to it. Besides its first cost, it

has proved a source of great yearly expenditure. For,

being managed by a Boai'd of Cp.nal Commissioners, and

needing constant repair, the commissioners and the

contractors for repairs laid their heads together, and, by

false estimates and extravagant payments, cheated the

State out of many millions, which, we suppose, they

fairly divided with each other. This game had been

played for many years, perhaps from the first laying out

of the canal. At length Mr. Tilden was set to work to

ferret out these rascalities, and achieved much success.

It was hoped that by making him governor he would

be in a position to do his work more thoroughly still.

His zeal and ability were great ; but we understand

UNMASKED.

175

tliat corruption was so firmly planted and s.) strongly
propped by party s»i})port, that he was not able to pei--
fect his reforms. Both he and Mr. O'Connor, in pursuit
oi justice, found some of the mo -it stubborn obstacles
blocking up the road, in the persons of some judges on
the bench, put in ollice on party and corrupt considera-
tions.

Now the Democratic party, having been long out of
office, had become great reformers and verv honest men.
Probably thiy did embody most of that class. The
areatest rogues had long since gone over to the partv^ in
power. A Presidential election was couung on. Mr.
Tilden's success in his late undertakings had made him
widely and favourably known throughout the Union ;
and he seemed to be the most available candi late they
could take up. In this they were mistaken. His repu-
tation was based altogether on his zeal and abilitv in
ferreting out rascalitv in office. But after sixteen years
of office and power enjoyed by one party — the Repub-
licans — the government had become more than an Augean
stable ; to clean it out would have engendered a pestilence.
So vast an amount of evidence of peculation, fraud,
and direct stealing had accumulated in the bun- ais of
every department of government, and in every clerks
desk, that it would ruin thousands of the most influen-
tial men in the country to luring thes' things to light.

The Republican politicians had been so long in office,
that almost every man had ij^rown rich in it • and besides
their own money and patronage, they had command of
all the resources of the government, including the army
and treasury ; and banding together like a band oi

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176

THE UNITED STATES

1 ■

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brothers, or rather robbers, they resolved to use all
possible means of defence. When the chairman of an
election returning board in a Southern State was in-
structed as to what was expected of him in his mani-
pulation of the returns as to the Presidential election,
well might he say, ' There is money in it ; yes, a million
of money in the job !'

The alarm and indignation of the Republicans was in-
tense, but they strove to conceal it : " What 1 Tilden in
the Presidential chair, searching into every official and
party transaction that cannot bear the light ! No I we
will move heaven, earth, and hell to defeat him." And
they did, and with success.

It were long to tell the intrigues and corruption by
which this result was brought about. And they have
already been well explained and exposed, especially by
Judge Black of Pennsylvania, in his article published in
the North American Review.

When the election had taken place, but before the
result was officially declared, General Grant, the Presi-
dent in office, emltoldened the conspiring Republicans to
persevere in and P' rfect their ][lans, by drawing togeth-
er troops and armed vessels at Washington, by repairing
and mounting guns on the old earthworks commanding
the roads leading thither ; and by forbidding an assem-
bly and great procession at Washington, planned by the
Democrats as a manifestation of their joy at Tilden's
supposed election. Grant thus manifested his resolution
to see Mr. Hayes, and no one else, placed as his successor
in the Presidential chair. It would have suited Grant
as little as any of his party, to have unfriendly and

use all
.n of an
was in-
3 mani-
ilection,
inilliun

was in-
ilden in
iial and
No ! we
' And

)tion by
ey have
ially by
ished in

'ore the
Presi-
icans to
togeth-
?pairing
aanding
assem-
by the
niden's
ioiution
accessor
I Grant
lly and

UNMASKED

177

prying successors investigating the transactions of their
predecessors in office.

The Republican conspirators had made the utmost
eiforts, in every State where the vote was much divided,
to suppress the true result, where it told against them.
And by inducing the returning boards, which investi-
gated and registered the result of the election, in Loui-
siana and Florida, to suppress the true returns and
substitute false returns, they deprived Mr. Til den of a
majority of thirteen votes in the electoral college, and
gave Mr. Hayes a majority of one ; and when Congress
appointed a commission of fifteen to decide on the
result of the election, of the five judges of the Supreme
Court placed on this commission, three made themselves
ready and zealous tools for perfecting the fraud ; to give
one instance — they promptly decided a point of law one.
way when it told in Mr. Hayes' favour, but another
way when it would have told against him.

Mr. Hayes, a mere usurper, coolly walked into an
office to which he was not elected ; and Mr. Tilden, the
real President, was left at leisure to resume his practice
at the bar ; to return to spreading the net of the law to
catch shoals of small rogues ; but the great rogues who
steal State and Federal governments, and their treasuries,
easily broke through the meshes of his net.

We hope, for the honour of manhood, that there are
few countries, in which such a transaction would not
have raised a row. But the Yankees, unless they have
very long odds of numbers in their favour do not fight.

The voters, who elected Mr. Tilden President, being
only a considerable and not a great majority, took their

178

THE TTNITED STATES UNMASKED.

strategetic (let'eat like lainbs. They tamely pocketed
their sovereign right, to be pulled out at some more
convenient season ; and left laws, rights, lil)erties, and
the tattered remnant of the Constitution to take care of
themselves. They prudently argued that any political
agitation and conflict, just at this time, would aggravate
tlie financial crisis ; and there was already more of
that in the country than they knew how to deal with.
Let the world slide and each man take care of himself.

Although want of access to documentary evidence,
and an occasional hasty inference may have led us into
some errors, we are confident that this is by no means
an erroneous exposition of the present condition of the
United States.

It may be veiy difficult, but far from impossible to
recuperate the soil of the great democratic republic,
but what can regenerate the people ?

THE END.

VIVIAN, PRINTKH, CLARENCE STIIEET, LONDON, ONT,

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Full text of "The United States unmasked [microform] : a search into the causes of the rise and progress of these states and an exposure of their present material and moral condition"

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